REACH FOR THE SKY

REACH FOR THE SKY

Napoleon once famously said that the word 'impossible' should be removed from the dictionary. As a child we all are little Napoleons. We intend to conquer our world of ambitions. So it was with me!

At the age of six I was riding an adult bicycle. At thirteen I was unlawfully driving a six cylinder Land Rover and I was determined to fly an aeroplanes as soon as I was allowed to get into the cockpit. That is the way young boys are ! No sugar and spice.

I soon found myself in the university hostel. Here I came across an affluent, suave, strikingly handsome boy from a top public school ( these schools, exclusive and expensive, are perhaps known as private schools in USA). It was his humility that set him apart from other elite-school boys. The disdain and the arrogance was altogether missing. He was absolutely at peace with himself and with the world. As I look back through the mist of time his eyes had the compassion that reminded me of Jesus!

This RDJ, as I would prefer to call him here, was a member of the local flying club. He would often come late for dinner into our hostel dining hall and then over the meals expansively tell us the direction he went flying that day and the cities he flew over. How I longed to be in his shoes !! He gave me a bestseller paperback "REACH FOR THE SKY ", a saga of awesome courage of a never-say-die British boy who joined the RAF as the clouds of the second worldwar were building. He soon lost both his legs. This boyhood hero of RDJ, the 'legend' named Douglus Bader, got himself artificial legs and came bouncing back into the war as it broke out. He gave such a hell to Hitler's aircrafts that he was knighted by the King !

I came over to another university for the post graduate programme and he went his own way. Much water had flown down the Thames bridge when, early one morning, a small news item at the bottom of the front page of the newspaper caught my eyes. And it numbed me.The report said that, while in the process of negotiating his aircraft for landing on an aircraft carrier, a young officer of the naval airforce crashed. He was RDJ.

Unlike his childhood hero, he did not survive the crash and he left a lifelong wound in my heart. His favourite book, REACH FOR THE SKY, is still with me as I look back through the intervening decades to the life and times of the one and only RDJ.

             ***************

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST

LOVES LABOURS LOST

( my apologies to shakespears)

Miracles do happen. Here is one :

As the curtain goes up we see a pretty young girl, a stenographer, chomping snacks, seated behind a remington typewriter.It is office lunch time. The place is a city office-complex in Nagpur in India. The building is a three-storey, rectangular and huge one, housing several govt. Offices. At the ground level a wide pavement runs around it where we find cars, scooters and bicycles parked. We also see some office junk lying in piles here and there on this pavement for early disposal. Beyond this are well-maintained lawns. It is lunch time and office workers are lazing in the winter Sun.

A boy named Gopalan now enters the room and starts pestering this girl. He is madly in love with this Rita.The girl does not love him at all. A case of 'unilateral' love in a manner of speaking. This 'Romeo drama' has been going on for a long time now, ad-nauseam. The boy is fed up and desperate. The girl is a no-nonsense one. She is also fedup.Today the boy has resolved to settle the matter, one way or the other.

" I am going to go up and jump down to my death if you don't agree to marry me. Its here and now." He declares breathlessly.

The girl stops chomping snacks.well, You cant eat as well as laugh ! She saw something very theatrical in this display.

"Okay Gopalan. You go and commit suicide.If you do so, I shall marry you. Now get lost".

She was still having fits of laughter when the boy beats a retreat. He resolutely runs up the flight of stairs, runs across the length of roof and dives. A free fall of some sixty feet !

Lunch time crowd in the office lawn watch in utter disbelief as he goes down accelarating( v = mg square ). Now a miracle takes place !! Directly beneath this 'y = mx + c' path was lying a pile of empty huge cardboard boxes for disposal. Gopalan hits the top, goes all the way down and crawls out at the bottom to the shouts of " the bloke is alive !!" by the crowd.

He has no time for them. He rushes inside, storms into the room where Rita is giving finishing touches to her tiffin. She hears him and then explodes.

" you lousy skunk! Do you think I am buying this Jack-out-of -the-box tale. Now I am going to report it to the chief and the Police".

And as she proceeds toward the phone, the boy does the disappeariog act.

(THE CURTAIN DROPS )

There is a footnote to this true story : I met the boy years later. I found him to be happily married to another sweet girl. Miracles do happen!
(Q.E.D.)

ONE AFTERNOON ON A LONELY MOUNTAIN ROAD

The flight from kolkata to Silchar was delayed. We waited and waited. Then, instead of the usual Boeing 737 which mercifully disappears way above the clouds for a short supersonic ride , they provided a low flying old fokker-friendship plane . We flew leisurely over Bangladesh and, down below, I could see the roads, the rivers and even big and small vehicles on glistening ribbons of roads !

While waiting at the Kolkata airport I came across a very friendly police officer whom I will refer to as Mr.B. He was also going to Silchar. As he was a Delhi based warm-hearted punjabi gentleman , we instantly bonded as I was also a Delhiwalla. We got into chatting. I told him that as part of a management lecture-tour I would proceed from silchar to the capital of one of north-east states.

"well you are in luck as I am posted there and I have a car for the long journey over the hills." he said, "You will travel with me in my car". I gratefully agreed.

But at Silchar I found that the Director of the Institute had sent his car all the way to silchar for me and I felt that it would be highly discourteous of me if I didn't use it. Mr.B agreed with me.

"what we will do is that your car keeps right behind mine for the entire eight-hour journey. You will need to eat something on the way and I have arrangement for that", he suggested.

There was lately some law and order problems on this route. His company assured security.

The driver of my comfortable small car was a cheerful young fellow but we had the language problem !

We kept right behind mr. B's big black shining car for some fifteen minutes and I relaxed and opened a newspaper.

Suddenly my driver took a left turn and the speeding black car vanished along the straight road. We were heading elsewhere. I asked the driver to turn back and follow the black car. He said something which I could not follow. We talked in different languages ! And he kept moving on this new route!

After ten minutes of drive we arrived at a beautiful sprawling bungalow. There was a riot of colours in the well maintained lawn with flowers in full bloom. The car negotiated a curving driveway and came to a stop under a portico. An elderly gentleman came out on hearing the crunching of gravel in the driveway. He greeted me. And he mercifully addressed me in english. The driver told him something in a language I did not know.

"I am sorry you were upset with change of route" he said, "actually we had arranged a breakfast for you here before your long journey".

The breakfast was excellent and it was only after I had started eating that I realised how hungry I was. I had only had a cup of coffee so far and now it was close to nine in the morning.

Then we embarked upon our journey.The next four hours of journey was eventless and through woods that were lovely dark and deep. I recalled Robert Frost's famous poem. He was riding a horse and I was riding a car !

I had nobody to talk to. Longing for some tea and snacks I kept looking out for a roadside tea shop. There were none that I would have liked to stop at.

It was around one o'clock now. The car was negotiating a steep road in lower gear with the engine hollowing. Then a sharp right turn and the road levelled for a one mile long straight road ! The car picked up speed.

Far ahead of us I spotted some people standing right in the middle of the road. Perhaps they were road-repair crew so common after the monsoon. As we came close I saw them - eight gun-totting men in some kind of a uniform I was unfamiliar with. They were agitated and ordered the driver to come out of the car when the car stopped. The driver was now explaining something and pointedly gesticulating towards me.

For endless moments they talked. Something was wrong! Who were they ? I just sat there in the car and waited for their next move. I was definitely worried.

Now their leader moved towards me and opened the side door where I was seated. He motioned me to come out and follow him up a flight of steep steps on the hill across the road. I was now very scared. I had to step out and follow him.

We crossed the road and climbed a flight of steps. The others brought up the rear. Here I found a small house, well hidden from the road. He pushed open a door and gestured me to move in !!

A tough tall youthful man with a thoughtful expression on his face was seated behind a big office-table in this room reading something. As I entered, he suddenly got up and moved towards me with the agility of a leopard.

And as I braced myself for something unpleasant, an anti-climax happened ! He smiled and extended his hand for a handshake ! "Welcome dear sir! I am the officer in-charge here. Mr.B was very much worried when he found your car missing. He waited here for a while and then left, with instructions that you should be stopped and given some tiffin before you proceed further. From here onwards there are no way-side tea and snacks shops and it is still a long journey.

I explained to him why I could not follow mr. B. He nodded in approval.

" yes, it was very thoughtful of them to arrange a breakfast for you".

Then he called someone to bring my lunch. I had a hearty meal ! And then he joined me for a cup of hot darjeeling tea !

The rest of the journey was eventless. I arrived in time in the big and enchanting state capital. I immediately proceeded to the house of mr. B to thank him for arranging that hearty lunch for me. And he further loaded me with a great punjabi dish of Chhole bhature !

Thus ended a memorable trip through the lonely hills in the enchanting north east India.

            ***********

KNOCK ON THE DOOR

KANPATTIMAAR, THE SERIAL KILLER OF 1959

In the dead of the night some one was knocking at the door. . . KNOCK . . .KNOCK . . .KNOCK . . . I froze with panic and fully covered myself with the quilt. With baited breath I waited.

The knocks came again . . Knock . . .knock . . .Knock !

Some fool in the room got up and opened the door. We had decided in the evening that the door will not be opened at night under any circumstances.

A moment later there was a dull thud. Something hitting the floor. Then silence returned. Inside the quilt I shivered and covered my ears with my hands. There was now a DEAD BODY outside for sure, with a tiny deep hole just above one of the ears. And the door must be lying open now, for a dead man cannot shut the door. The remaining seven of us were now 'sitting ducks' .

That was a cold december night in Kanpur India- many decades back. I was a student and was in kanpur for a cricket test match. The house was of a friend of my father and the drawing room was virtually a dormatory now with eight boys occupying it. All for the test match !

A serial killer had been on a rampage for sometime now, bringing the cities of kanpur and lucknow to a state of dread and a sort of curfew. Already there were many many killings. No blood, no strangulation. Very neat job by a highly skilled killer.

The psychopathic killer was an ex- dentist-gone- mad and his modus-operandi was usually this: dead in the night he would knock on the door three times. If someone did not open the door after the knocks he would repeat the knocks and then loudly call T E L E G R A M. When the door opened he swiftly struck the victim with a sharp quick strong blow of a surgical needle above one of the ears, killing him instantly. As a doctor he knew the exact vital spot above the ear. He was a terror called 'Kanpattimaar', the scourge of the two cities.

There was a killing every week and he kept his movement between the two cities unpredictable. There were no clues left behind- no fingerprints no footprints,no witnesses. Like the 'Maneating leopard of Rudraprayag' (googlesearch JIM CORBETT) who remained elusive for a long time, he had become an terrible enigma, a WILL O' THE WISP, driving the authorities into desperate frenzy.

When I had boarded the train at Lucknow for Kanpur I had a sense of relief. The killings had just started again in Lucknow and everyone was more or less certain that the killer was not in Kanpur at the moment.

At kanpur railway station I got into a rikshaw asking the man to take me to Gwaltoli colony where my father's friend lived. He looked positively reluctant.

" what is the matter?" I asked the rikshaw driver.

" saab aaj yoh gwaltoli ilaake main hi hai" he said in hindi ( sir he is lurking in Gwaltoli area itself today).

The reference was to the serial killer.

I offered him one and a half times the normal fare. He accepted. A poor man, afterall, sets more value on money than his own life.

But now it was my turn to worry. I could well have confined myself to the safety of my house in lucknow. How I regretted my decision of coming to kanpur risking my life. Cricket match my foot !

Arriving at the house at Gwaltoli I was quickly introduced to the other boys occupying the spacious living room. In those days the "drawing-cum-dining room" concept was not in vogue and houses had large separate drawing rooms.

Over dinner I came to learn that the serial killer's latest victim had lived two houses down the road. No wonder the rikshaw driver was reluctant to come!

"if somebody knocks on the door at night don't open the door under any circumstances" said our host. "we have a killer in the city." We used to affectionately call our host 'Bhagwat uncle'.

When I woke up in the morning I recalled that there was a dead body outside. I made a headcount to see which one of us was missing. One . .two . . three . . All were there except Umesh! I felt sorry for him. He was such a warm hearted character. But why did he open the door !

Next moment someone came out of the bathroom, wiping his face with a towel. He turned out to be Umesh ! who got killed then !

It came to pass that the one who opened the door was Bhagwat uncle himself and, thank heavens, he was very much alive!

It turned out that it was the old milkman who knocked early in the morning. He used to deliver milk in the colony, carrying his huge 'milk-can' . The sound of something hitting the ground came from his huge milk can !!

As an epilogue to this TRUE story I may add that the 'kanpattimaar' was eventually caught shortly afterwards. He was not in news after his arrest and we lost track of him.

Whenever I pass by the parivartan chowk area in Lucknow I always recall the 'kanpattimaar'. He had made his first 'kill' here.

And whenever I hire a rikshaw outside the Kanpur railway station I recall the fear in the eyes of that rikshaw driver.

And I canot avoid recalling the killer whenever there are three loud knocks on a door at a measured interval :

KNOCK . . .KNOCK . . . KNOCK . . .

                *****************

OF NAILS AND MIRACLES

NAILS AND MIRACLES

On my way to the barber's shop in Hazratgunj Lucknow, I took a shortcut through a bylane in the Maqbara colony opposite the Halwasiya market. At a particular point in this deserted lane a crowd was spilling into the street from a house. It was early in the morning and the bylane had hardly any traffic except those going into that particular house.

As I walked by the house on my way to the barber, I asked a young man standing outside as to whose house it was.

"This is Dr. Pepper's clinic" he informed me "he is there, examining his patients."

I arrived at the barber's shop and settled down for a haircut. A barber is like the internet. You ask him about anything and he has the information !

"who is Dr. Pepper ?" I asked him as he got busy clipping my disorderly hair.

" He is not an M.B.B.S. doctor" he said, "He is a Miracle Worker. He inspects your nails and then tells you your health problems right from the day you were born. And he gives herbs. All free. If you have not visited him so far you have missed something remarkable."

" If everything is free what does he do for a living ?" I asked.

" He has a ten to five job." he said, "in the mechanical engineering line. People call him a doctor because he is far better than a doctor. Even doctors come to him for treatment -by the backdoor ofcourse, to save face !"

The next morning I was at Dr. Pepper's house.

He was a lean and thin aging and graceful man with clear intense eyes and a thundering voice. Sitting in an armchair in the covered verandah, Dr. Pepper kept examining a patient, tapping each nail with a matchstick. The patient had placed all the ten fingers on the wide arm-rest of the doctor's chair.

"Did you ever go to the sea shore for swimming?" he asked the patient.

The sea coast is a good thousand miles away from Lucknow.

"No. Never." replied the patient.

" But ten years back you were definitely doing something in the sea. Try to recollect" he insisted.

The man was silent for a while and then remembered something.

" Yes yes, I went on a pilgrimage to Puri in orissa ten years back and took bath in the sea." the patient said.

" And you were bitten by something while bathing. Here on the leg." he tapped the patient's right leg below the knee.

"Yes ofcourse. How do you know this ?" the patient interjected.

Dr. Pepper ignored the question and turned his eyes towards us.

"This man was bitten by a fish (he actually named the fish but I don't remember which). His present problem is the result of poison from that bite. He has been suffering for ten long years"

And Dr. Pepper then abruptly got up and left the clinic.

I was preparing to leave when, after fifteen minutes, he came back with a paperbag full of some kind of a grass.

"Here. Take this." he said, handing over the packet to that patient.

Then he asked the patient to note down in detail the method of treatment."You have this weed in plenty in your village." he informed to the patient.

I did not leave until the last patient had left. It was an awesome experience.And then when he asked me if I wanted anything, I asked him if I could have a photograph of his.

" what will you do with the photograph of an old man?" he asked, amused.

" I will write a feature on you for a magazine " I said. "this is my first visit and I find that you are an extraordinary person."

He was silent for a long time. I thought he was now waiting for me to get up and go. And then he spoke softly , almost inaudibly.

" You have asked me to choose between the gift that God has given me and publicity." He looked at me and smiled."what do you think I should do ?"

I had got my answer.

"I understand " I said " I am sorry it was a very inappropripate request"

I touched his feet and came out.

But I remained in touch with him for a long long time afterwards, visiting him whenever in Lucknow and taking people to his clinic - till his last days.

That was a long time back. Surprisingly nobody knows about him today, not even in his own colony. . . .That is the way the world is. That is also perhaps the way he always wanted he to be!

             ***************

DEATH STALKS THE COOK

That year in the winters there was a sharp increase in the number of monkeys in the town. They would appear anywhere. They moved in hordes- the male the female and the kids. And they attacked at the slightest provocation.

Electricity poles on the roof of the houses were their first target! The leader- the fattest of the daddy monkeys - would climb up the eight feet high eiectric pole on the roof, shake it so thorouhly that the wires touched and shortcircuited, blowing out the fuse. Then, satisfied with the damage done, they would come down and create havoc elsewhere. They devastated the kitchen garden, uprooting the plants.

Two features which were common in the bunglows of the old british days were : 1) There was a walled big courtyard on the opposite side of the front lawn for the ladies of the house. The kitchen was far at the back of this courtyard, away from the main building. 2) The doors had wooden square grills on their upper half portion with big glass panes. So you could see what was going outside with the door firmly shut. It also provided ample light to the rooms.

That fateful day in the winter Katwaroo, our young and tough cook, came out of the kitchen, which was at the far end of the big courtyard. It was two o'clock in the afternoon. He locked the kitchen door and turned round to proceed to his quarters outside the walled courtyard.

He spotted a small monkey in the kitchen garden, in the tomato beds, damaging plants. Katwaroo picked up big stone and tossed it at the monkey only to scare it away. It hit the monkey so squarely on the face that he fell down, screaming hoarsely. Within seconds dozens of ferocious red-faced big monkeys materialised from nowhere and raced to attack Katwaroo. It was total WAR. An army of monkeys against one defenceless man!

The door of the Kitchen had already been locked by Katwaroo and there was no time now for him to rush back to open it for shelter. So he desparately turned towards the house for safety, with countless monkeys on his trail !

There were two rooms with doors opening into that verandah to which katwaroo was now desparately racing. In the morning the glass-pane door of father's room had been latched from inside by katwaru himself when father left for office (he had put the latch at the top of the door). The other room's door was also bolted from inside, at the top and the bottom. This other room was full of children from the neighbourhood. We were busy playing indoor games.

I rushed to this glass paned door when I heard the howling of the monkeys. As I peeped out through the glass panes, I saw katwaroo racing for his life into the verandah. He was now very close to the door of father's room. A ferocious huge monkey had caught up with him and had torn away the bottom of one of the pyjama legs, drawing blood.

With the door shut from inside, katwaroo's life was now in grave danger as it was a race against time, race against killer monkeys. Several fat ferocious monkeys were now closing in. Katwaroo was trapped !!

What happened next was sheer magic. In one fluid moment that is forever etched in my memory, Katwaroo thrust his powerful right fist through uppermost glass pane, shattering it and injuring the hand. In that split second he opened the inside latch,moved in and slammed the door shut. The door hit the face of the first big daddy monkey that was trying to follow him into the room. The monkey recoiled in pain and withdrew.

The verandah was now filling with howling monkeys.They were rapidly filling it and pushing at the closed door.

Suddenly two powerful gunshots rent the air, shaking the doors and rattling the glass panes. Our neighbour Singh saheb had fired two shots in the air from his double barrel gun. I saw him on the roof of his house with the smoking gun in his hands.

Within seconds not a single monkey was anywhere in the entire colony ! They panicked and disappeared .

Katwaroo came out. I gave him some antiseptic and a wad of cotton-wool to treat his bruises and cuts.

With a matchstick he set the cottonwool wad on fire and pressed it hard on his bleeding leg and hand.

"This works best" he said returning the antiseptic to me, and walked towards his quarter, loudly whistling.The race had ended !!

I looked at the receding figure of Katwaroo . . . and I recalled a famous quote : "When the going gets tough, tough get going." YES INDEED... !!

                 **************

The unanswered W H Y

The WHY that bothers all thinking men and women is :

Why does life exist? Why is one born? From a tiny honey bee to a massive elephant they all go through the same process as a flower in a flower bed 

Outside my wide window in the east there is a flower bed of red roses. In the wee hour of dawn, as another day begins in that endless cycles of dawns and dusks, I often keep looking reflectively at this flower bed - the buds that are preparing to open up, the roses in various stages of bloom and  the petals that  lie scattered in the flower beds. 

That more or less sums up life.

The purpose of life is something that will, for ever, remain the ultimate unsolved enigma.

The whole creation is blessed with deceptive disillusionment. Inspite of sheer futility of this impermanence, of the endless chain of births and deaths that links the first human beings with us, we go through the whole life mechanically, like zombies, with disdainful unconcern. 

The clerk who demands a small 'speed money' to keep your file moving and the man at the top who is syphoning away millions of public money and stashing it in the Swiss Bank are both in the same state of mind. They seem  to be oblivious of the ultimate, the finale.

When I visit a graveyard or a cremation ground I often wonder who these people were. I 'imagine' through their lives, through their life's  journey of  hopes and despairs, through their struggles and success. It all ended up here. in a graveyard or a cremation ground. 

And then I go into the same reflective state of mind as that when I am watching the flower bed of roses outside my eastern window at dawn -  watching those scattered rose petals.

The sheer similarity hits me. The 'WHY' remains unanswered !

"Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

Before we too into the Dust Descend;

Dust into Dust, and under
Dust, to lie,

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and—sans End!
(Omar Khaiyyam)

****

A TALE FROM THE HIMALAYAS

A TALE FROM THE HIMALAYAS

He had lost his way while returning to his village in the hills. It had suddenly started raining and it had become quite dark too because of the clouds that hung low over the hills even though it was a moonlit night. A little ahead of him on the narrow hill track he spotted a tall man in white dress. The man had also spotted him and had stopped.

The howling of a strong wind and the lashing of rain through the pine trees was eerie in the stillness of the night in the hills. It was the peak of monsoon season. He was a man known for very strong nerves in the villages around and was used to chilling scenerio and unexpected situations.

"you seem to have lost your way" said the man in white dress loudly over the deafening roar of the wind when they drew closure, " where do you have to go ?"

when he told him that he lived in nearby Mala village the man nodded his head as if he already knew the answer and then he quietly guided him to his house in half an hour. They did not talk on the way as the wind and the rain made any conversation between them impossible.

He found that the man had to go to a village that was far away. The rain had now become much heavier and the wind was a raging storm.

" you should stay with us for the night and go in the morning. Food is ready", he suggested.

He noticed a strange expression on the stranger's face at the mention of food. Perhaps he was very hungry.

The stranger came inside the house with him when his wife opened the door.

This was a big three storey stone house a little distance uphill from the shallow mountain river stream that one crossed by stepping over the rocks and boulders to arrive in the village. The motor road was on the other side of the river and it went up to Kausani, a well known hill resort nestled at a much higher altitude. It was a nice house with living quarters on the first and second floor. The ground floor was an area where they stored farm implements and other tools. And fodder too. It had a big area for the cows to live.They called it GOTH in their hill dialect.

They sat by the crackling fireplace. It was warm and cosy here.The housewife went into the kitchen to bring their food.

His attempt to engage the stranger in some talk did not succeed. There was a far-away look in the eyes of the stranger and he answered reluctantly in monosyllables.

When food was served the room was full of aroma from the steaming dishes particularly the strong and pleasant aroma of JAMBOO , a local herb used for seasoning the curry.

" I think we will need some salt, " the stranger said after tasting the curry,

" I have to get it from the kitchen," he said in a tired voice. The trek to his village had thoroughly drained him of energy. He looked reluctant to get up.

The stranger looked up. He thought the host was too tired and need not be bothered

"Do not bother," he said," I will get it myself" as the host was in the process of heaving himself up.

The next moment the stranger extended his hand towards the kitchen. The hand, in a flash, grew yards and yards long and stretched and travelled into the kitchen. The next moment there was the container of salt on the table and a loud scream followed by a thud came from the kitchen.

He dashed into the kitchen to see if his wife was alright. His wife had fainted when she saw an endlessly long hand entering the kitchen all by itself and grabbing the salt container from the shelf. He sprinkled water on her face and she opened her eyes. she was normally a woman of good nerves but this was way above her nerves.

He came back to the living room. The stranger was not there.He went to check the main door through which the stranger may have gone. He found it was firmly bolted from inside. He could not find the visitor anywhere in the house.

He came back to the living room and continued with his dinner..

         ********************

THE THIEF AND THE GENTLEMAN

THE THIEF
AND THE GENTLEMAN

He was quite weary as he slowly walked back home from his office that summer evening. His house was in Mohaddipur railway colony Gorakhpur, a ten minutes walk from his office. His family was away, in the cool mountain town of Almora where his in-laws lived. It was the summer vacation in the schools.He was, for sometime, HomeAlone .

As he drew nearer home he thought he would have a cool shower bath, and then, read morning newspaper leisurely over a cup of home made darjeeling tea, sitting in front of the desert cooler. He shuffled into the verandah

and turned the key in the big brass padlock. 

And then, as he threw the door open, he stepped into utter chaos. The house had been ramsacked. Almirahs and trunks were open and empty, their contents thrown on the floor. Even the wall clock was not spared - the thief had opened its innards to see if any valuables were hidden there ! All the cash kept in the almirah had been stolen. The rear door was wide open! The thief had even carried away some clothes.

He reported the theft at the police station. And as he knew someone highup in the department. the police swung into action. Next evening as he languidly returned home, a policeman came with what he claimed to be the thief of his house. The tell tale signs of police 'questioning' were on the thief's face and body. He wondered if the man was the real thief ! His face was vaguely familiar. Where had he seen this man before ? 

"Sir we have thoroughly questioned him and he has confessed to the theft in your house." The policeman told him.

He wanted to be sure that the actual thief had been caught. His mental makeup did not allow an innocent man to suffer false charges.

 " If you don't mind I would like to talk to this man alone." he said to the policeman, "just to clear certain things. You can wait here in the verandah"

The man-in-uniform settled in an easy chair in the verandah under the ceiling fan. And he stepped out to squat in the lawn with the thief for a quiet talk.

He had serious doubts about this man being the thief. How could they catch the real thief so quickly. And, in any case,the chap did not look like a professional thief. Not that he knew how a professional thief should look ! 

"Look here,You have to tell me the truth. If you are not the thief," he said to the bloke when they were alone, "I will see that you are set free." 

Just because he knew someone highup in the police departnent did not mean that you catch the first helpless man you see, and produce him as a thief ! 

For whatever reason it may be, the thief held his ground. He said he had indeed broken into the house. And he looked sleepless. Perhaps the bloke wanted to avoid further workout on him at the police station. But let him try again. he must be sure that this was the real thief.

 "OK. Can you tell me why you threw a wrist watch on the floor while walking away from the house." He deliberately said 'wrist watch' to find out if the man had really been inside the house. 

The thief looked confused. 

"what wristwatch, sir ? I did not find any wrist watch. It was a wall clock that I left on the floor after opening it." he said, "People hide valuables in the wall clock" 

And then, when questioned, he described in detail the layout of the house and where everything was originally placed before the mess that he had created after breaking into the house from the rear door. 

There was no doubt left now that this man had indeed committed the theft in his house the previous day. 

There was a tiny tea stall across the road from his house. He got the chhotu (the boy servant of the stall) to bring three cups of tea. 

The policeman did not grudge the waiting now and picked up a magazine to keep himself busy over the cup of tea. The thief slurped his tea as they sat in the cool grass and described the entire 'project theft' in meticulous details - in a very matter-of-fact way.

"Saheb, You won't believe me but it is a very hard job, this business of theft.," he said. "You may not remember it but you had, at times, looked at me as I kept watching you daily for one full week. When I came to know that your family is not here and you were alone these days, I began watching your movements closely. I used to sit there on that parapet and note your entire time- schedule. I had to be sure that you would not surprise me while I am inside." 

He smiled wryly as he pointed to a nearby culvert which was his watchpost. 

"Sir, all jobs need lot of hard work, even a thief's, if you honestly want to succeed." No doubt the face was familiar. Now he remembered that this man was sitting at the culvert for the last few days ! He had no further use of the man and he told the policeman so. 

As the twosome walked away, the words of the thief kept ringing in his mind - "all jobs need hard work if you want to succeed" . The last time he heard this words was ironically at a management development programme!! By a strange logic a thief was also a well-honed manager !!

                 *******

DEATH OF A HAT

"The men with the sola hats"

They were sitting there with deadpan expressions, as if the camera that was taking their group photo would explode if they smiled. There were chairs in the first row and exactly in the centre of this row sat a British officer. All others were, what they then called, 'natives' officers. Behind them were the staff members of the office standing in rows, each row farther back a bit  higher than the preceding one.

There was only one thing common amongst those occupying chairs - a SOLA HAT.

The young people of today do not know what a SOLA HAT.

Here is Mahatma Gandhi writing about SOLA HATS:

"My narrow nationalism
rebels against the hat, but
my secret internationalism
regards the sola hat as one of the few boons from
Europe. But for the
tremendous national
prejudice against the hat, I
would undertake to become president of a league for popularizing sola hats."

You can read the full article of Mahatma Gandhi here:

http://www.mkgandhi.org/thiswasbapu/106solahat.htm

Why did India discard these hats which were inexpensive, ultra-light, durable , a protection from heat-wave and eco-friendly ? It is time they are resurrected !

                    *******'''''''

THE THIRD REASON

"THE THIRD REASON"

The restaurant was expensive. And almost deserted on that afternoon. My friend had dragged me there for a cup of coffee.

I always avoided going to posh restaurants. There were three reasons for this. First, I did not like paying a ridiculously high price for a dish that I could get, same quality, at a fraction of that price in any other moderately priced good restaurant. Second, some of the waiters in such places had far more money in their pocket at the end of the month than me. You cannot fail to see that hint of a disdain in their eyes if they detected that you were not in the big league.

And I will tell you the third reason in a while but let me first finish what I started with.

Yes, as I was saying,we were in a posh restaurant. There were several tables and we had settled in one that was adjascent to a highly polished central pillor. I could clearly see a gentleman sitting close by, though a part of his table was obstructed from view by the pillor. He had a permanent scowl about his face. He appeared to be a hot-tempered super-rich man.

As I watched, the waiter placed some shining crockery before him on the table along with an assortment of cutlery and had barely turned when this gentleman looked at his plate and sharply called him back.

'Hey. Why can't you see that the plate is not clean?' he demanded.

From where I sat closeby, the plate looked quite clean.

The waiter was ruffled but remained courtious.

'Sorry sir ! I will just bring you another plate.'

'What do you mean by sorry.This should not have happened.  And now don't just stand here.' The tone was offensive. ' Be quick', the gentleman waved his hand to dismiss the waiter.

The waiter was clearly upset as he disappeared behind the pillor to re-emerge on our side.

I did not want him to know that I was a witness to his dressing down so I pretended to look in another direction but kept watching him from the corner of my eyes.

The waiter wiped his forehead with a white handkerchief and looked around to see if he was being watched. No, there was no one watching.Satisfied, he spitted on the plate and thoroughly polished it with the hankie. And then he reappeared before the gentleman, respectfully placing the plate before him.

'Now that's much better !", drawled the gentleman, ' I like this sort of cleanliness. It should always be like this in future. Okay ?'

' Yes sir. It will always be so' said the courteous waiter.

That was the third reasons why I avoided top-flight restaurants!

(the photo is for illustrative purpose only)

#restaurant. #waiter. #coffee. #

The Sweet Tooth

"THE SWEET TOOTH"
My earliest memory of delicious sweets is of a very dry, light yellow milk-khoya (mawa) mithai laced with kesar (saffron) strands and with granules of misri
embeded in it. Father would bring it from (then) Benaras on his way back from a tour of eastern India. During the
same period of childhood I discovered those yummy. soft moist sweets from,then famous, Chaudhary Sweet House of Lucknow My favourite was the tricolour barfi - a block of Green pishta- khoya, yellow saffron-khoya, and white
almond khoya all in one. It was, in a way, the celebration of nascent free
India! It had great aroma and taste. Whether it was real stuff, or just artificial colour and flavour, is quite
another matter !

L.M.B Rasmalai (Lakshmi Mistha Bhandar of Jaipur) was famous a couple of decades back and justifiably so. An evening in LMB and a visit to Raj Mandir Theatre was in every tourist's must-do list. But the most delicious rasmalai I ate was at a small restaurant in Chetak circle in Udaipur ! It had a unique taste and flavour. The informal ambience of the restaurant added to the enjoyment.

And then there was that sumptuous pure khoya mithai with a heavenly
flavour and taste - the Shingoree of Almora in the Himalayas. Wrapped into a conical shape, in a maloo-ka-patta (fresh tender leaf of Himalayan oak), it beat all other sweets when you were real hungry and wanted genuine health-food with substance.

Doctors have lately taken fun out of eating - both  for young and old - with constant focus on HDL LDL and triglycerates! And, then, you never know what you are eating. With genuine ingradients getting replaced by lipid-shockers, you get bogged down checking transfats and counting calories! And in the worst case you unwittingly get to eat a mix of urea, saccharin, inedible oil and distemper masqerading as Khoya !

Yes, the days of great Indian sweets seem to be over. For now atleast !

               ******  

END OF AN ERA

A TALE OF TWO PLACES-
THE GUNJ and THE FLATS

It would appear strange to a teenager of today but there was a time not too far back when there were no smart phones or laptops , no cable or set-top-box TVs. Historians will delineate it as the "pre-internet" era.

It was in those pre-internet days that there existed a place in India known as Gunj. Yes, in my salad days in Lucknow, Hazratgunj was "The Hotspot", a must for all socially-alive folks. It was there that you would go in the evening, no matter how far it was from your house.This addiction was known as 'Gunjing'. It comprised of  strolls from the Benbows confectioners (now
Chhangamal cloth house) to the classic Mayfair Cinema (now closed) and from the famous Ramlal tailors&drapers (now a restaurant) to the swanky Royal cafe in Halwasiyas (not any more there) and then either settling down in one of those big and comfortable green cane-chairs (these have been replaced) in The Coffee House or hanging around a magahi paan shop (betel shop), depending on inclination and availability of time. As all sensible people of that era headed for Gunj in the evening , the place acquired a cult status and came to be regarded as a recognised rendezvous of frisky people irrespective of  age. One would even locate long lost friends from other cities in Gunj, either in the 'walking corridors' on the two sides of the wide road or in that timeless, sprawling, Coffee House.

'No place can be like gunj', a diehard Lucknowite would justifiably claim. With an indulgent smile an outsider may let it be accepted but, come to think of it, 'The Flats' in Nainital was a close second. Ofcourse it was not quite like 'The Gunj'. For one thing, there was no 'walking corridor' where you would invariably run into a friend Or a big and laidback coffee House - where you would endlessly chat with friends, and hang on for hours ! But 'The Flats' was otherwise a unique place for an evening-amble and for meeting people. At the peak of the tourist season it had the air of an ongoing carnival and the infectious excitement of a glorious holiday. And then there was that charming skating-rink where you could sit for a long time,resting your limbs and watching graceful, cheerful people skate, to the soothing sound of the serenading skates constantly rolling on the polished wooden floor.

That was way back in time. That was in the world that existed before the internet hit the world and turned it upside down, bringing about a metamorphic transformation to social interactions. These two places - GUNJ & THE FLATS -  are no longer the same. The
joie-de-vivre has been taken out of both. For ever.

With time the meaning of the word 'socialize ' has undergone a total change. Everything now is via internet - in the virtual world of the intangible and limitless, in the world of faceless and unknown and, at times, fake people. We are now in an era where gingerbread is no longer a bread , where 'Ice cream sandwich' is not for eating,  where games are played on  laptops and where a group of normal teenagers sitting in a restaurant never ever gossip. They silently face each other, eyes glued to their smartphones!

Yes, it is indeed the end of an era!

             **********

CHILDHOOD CHATTER, NAINITAL NATTER

The weather at Kathgodam was very oppresive when the driver of the bus heaved himself up on the seat behind the steering wheel and set the bus on a twentytwo mile journey to Nainital. In the month of may even the morning hours are insipid.

We climbed up from the burning planes to an altitude of over six thousand feet over winding roads and greenery.

Then came the last long and straight stretch of the (then) best mountain road in the world. The roar of the engine was echoed back from both the sides of the road as we negotiated the last of the talla bazaar area and emerged into a pictured post-card scenerio !

Yes that memory is deeply etched. The senses of smell, touch, sight and hearing are amazingly sharp in a child and I still remember the 'hit' of the first heavenly cool waft of the breeze, laden with a mystical aroma from the serene emerald green expance of the lake. And the first sight of the endless expanse of the majestic green  lake was equally mismerising. No other hill station has a sudden change of scenerio like this.

I had a much older cousin who was then in the college. She was very sweet.  I and my sister, who was my senior by a couple of years, simply adored her. All three of us were inseparable during my childhood Nainital holidays. As we were, then, unfamiliar with punjabi food we wondered what a tandoori roti was. We thought it was a dish by itself just like potato-stuffed paranthas or a kachauri. And so we mustered up courage one day and entered a tourist-filled restaurant in Nainital.

Excitement mounted as I sat at the edge of the chair and, wide-eyed, watched my cousin give 'order' to the waiter.

"Three tandoori roti " said my cousin and we eagerly nodded, literally drooling.

"And ?" said the waiter.

"And what? Nothing."

"oh! " said the waiter,"You want to carry them home"

"Why ! we will eat it here!"

The waiter looked amused and soon he was back with  three thick plain card- board type hot rotis.

That was an anticlimax that I never forgot though later on, in my Delhi days I hogged on nan and tandoori rotis with dal makhani and spicy,fried, vegetables.

There is a place called Garam-pani on the Nainital Almora hill road. It is some distancce ahead of the now famous Kainchi Ashram of Neem karoli baba (the Ashram came up in 1960s). In those days it was a long journey to the town of Almora via Ranikhet. The short cut over the Khairna bridge came later and it drastically cut the travelling time from Kathgodam to Almora from nine hours to four. In those day the buses had a mid day lunch-time halt at Garam pani

where they served mouthwatering food, all cooked in pure ghee (clarified butter) - steaming hot Puri, Aloo gutuk (fried cubes of potato seasoned with a rare aromatic herb of Tibet called jumboo and other spices) and raita made of grated cucumber,curd and seasoned with white mustard.

The opening of the khairna bridge destroyed the only place in Kumaon hills where the tourists could eat a range of fresh delicious kumaoni food. Sadly, there is not a single restaurant in the town of Nainital serving kumaoni eats. And the world is unaware of a range of delicacies that would make you drool !
(Photo credit draskd)

    
           ***************

ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT ?

It is a Live Concert with screaming, hysterical fans.
Elvis gives a jerk to his pelvis and begins to sing....

" Are you lonesome tonight ..... Do you miss me tonight ... Are you sorry we drifted apart ......

Does your memory stray .
........to a brighter summer day ...,,,"

and the audience goes into a hysterical frenzy... Absolutely wild... ! It is always so ! Here is an excerpt:

"Elvis, occasionally during live performances, would randomly change lyrics. The first recorded example of this was during his famous benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial at Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on March 25, 1961. During this frenzied concert, ElvisPresley in a clearly fun mood while performing the spoken word section over constant audience screams, delivers lines . ."

But Elvis was essentially a very lonely person.

"It would be four years before he sang 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' .
But by 1956 Elvis Presley was already talking about how he sometimes felt lonely –at the age of only 21.
In an interview that has
remained unreleased until
now, the young star revealed that, despite his youth, he was feeling isolated and apart from those around him –
perhaps because of his
sudden stardom.
(http://dailymail.com.U.K.)

Elvis was not the only celebrity to be lonesome.. Up there, on that high pedestal of awesome fame, one is more or less always all alone.

Emily Dickinson was one such person. She was a poetess living in 19th century USA. Consider this poem :

"A Bird came down the Walk —

He did not know I saw—

He bit an Angleworm in halves . .And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dewd From a convenient Grass—

And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass—

He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all around—

They looked like frightened Beads,
I thought—

He stirred his Velvet Head Like one in danger,

Cautious,I offered him a Crumb,

And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer home."

It is refreshingly simple, refreshingly earthy !

"Dickinson did not leave
the Homestead unless it was absolutely necessary and as early as 1867, she began to talk to visitors
from the other side of a door rather than speaking to them face to face.
she was rarely seen, and when she was, she was usually clothed in white.
Few of the locals who exchanged messages with Dickinson during her
last fifteen years ever saw her in person. Austin and his family began to protect Emily's privacy, deciding that she was not to be a
subject of discussion with outsiders." (wikipedia)

To the sages loneliness has been one big opportunity to decalcify their PenealGland (google search for more on this) , to celebrities it is an obvious shelter from an intruding world...

Another person who shunned people was the greatest cricketer ever - Don Bradman. He was a loner even in his cricketing circle. And he firmly shut his windows to the outside world.Here is a report of what happened when he once landed in 1953 in calcutta (now called kolkata) on his way to England :

'Though retired, Bradman was still as popular as ever. No sooner did a "visibly reluctant"Bradman enter the Dum Dum airport waiting room than a horde of people thronged for his glimpse. A livid Bradman ordered the authorities to guard his privacy. But since it wasn't possible to control the increasing crowd, he was taken to a quiet, safer place in an army vehicle. He later pulled up the airline for what he considered a "breach of confidentiality".'
- Rediff NewsApp

Another legend....Lee Harper,the author of one of the greatest novels of all times - To Kill a Mocking Bird - shuns publicity and has been withdrawn from public all her life.

"Lee abhors the
limelight. She stopped talking to the press a few years after her novel was
published and turns down most requests for appearances"
-Los Angeles Times

Now aged 87 years, she has lived a lonely life for over fifty years.

They are all lonely .They often have health problems too. And, inspite of awesome success, are generally devoid of peace of mind. Perhaps their mental makeup can be summed up in PBShelley's famous lines :

"Alas! I have nor hope nor
health,

Nor peace within nor calm
around,

Nor that content surpassing wealth

The sage in meditation found,

And walked with inward glory crowned. . . .

"To a skylark"

             ***********