SOUNDS WE NO LONGER HEAR

Sounds we no longer hear !

Once upon a time there were Table Clocks. Once every day you had to wind them up to enable them to keep running. In the pin drop silence at mid night one could hear the clock running - Tick .Tock .Tick. Tock. . .. This sound has passed into history.

The  old rotary dial phones required you to connect  a number by rotataing the dial and releasing it a number of times. This produced a typical CLICK... WHRRR ...... sound. We have silent push buttons phones now.

There was a symphony in how the wheels of those massive black railway steam engines moved and how those Hisss and Pufff sounds filled the railway platform as the engines pulled the trains out of the station.

There was a time when as you entered an office   your ears would be greeted with the sound of all those typewriters working at the same time.  These machines were noisy. The Clak...Clak... of each key, the zzzzip of the carriage return, the ggr-r-r-r-r-r-r of the manually rolling the paper up and down…. It was quite a  sound in a busy office. Traditional typewriters are part of history now.

There was one sound that even  most Senior citizens  may not have heard. That was the sound of Telegraph offices' vintage Morse Code Machines  sending the telegraphic  messages - gutttt . .  grrrrr . . . gutttt. . .gutttt.. . .
... grrrr .... That was before the Teleprinters came.

And finally those sounds of the Nature. With urbanisation and pollutions birds and bees  are disappearing. Certain animals are also not seen eg the washerman's donkey. How many of you have heard the cawing of a crow, the braying of the donkey , the humming of the bees, the KOO... KOO... of the koyal or the tuk.. tuk.. of a wood pecker at work ! In the fifties, in smaller town, you could even hear the calls of the Jackals !

How time flies !

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The Haunted Monkey Bridge

"The haunted monkey bridge"

I started paddling the #bicycle furiously as the approach to the bridge neared.

Paddling thus, I sailed over the mild incline and levelled up at the #bridge.

The speeding bicycle shot across the bridge and went down the slope on the other side to cross the big iron gate of entrance to #Lucknow university.

What a relief ! I was safe ! It was the first time I had crossed the  haunted #MonkeyBridge in the gathering darkness of an evening. and nothing happened to me !

Yes ! Monkey bridge was #HAUNTED. Thats what everyone said when I joined the university. Suddenly an apparition would appear out of the blue to drive daylight out of an unsuspecting wanderer. There were so many horror tales. Here is one:

". . . . . . .He was moving on the road towards the bridge on a desolate winter evening when a begger accosted him.

" God will bless you sahib. I have not eaten anything today. bless me with a  small coin and God will bless you with a fortune."

He found and took out a two paisa coin from his coat pocket. The beggar was all wrapped up in a soiled torn blanket. Now he unwrapped and  extended his hand.

What came out of the blanket was the huge leg of a horse, with a hoof touching his hand.

He panicked  and started running away. He saw a tonga ahead.

He shouted at the tonga to stop.

The tonga stopped abruptly and he jumped to the rear seat. He asked the tonga driver to drive away fast. The tonga picked up speed.

"What is the matter #sahib ? you seem to be very agitated "

He narrated the frightening experience to the tonga driver.

" . . . and Í saw a horse's leg coming out of the blanket " He concluded.

" My God", exclaimed the tonga man, " was it like this .."

The tonga driver extended his arm towards the rear of the tonga where the man was sitting.

. . . And it was a huge leg of  horse  before him, the hoof prodding him. He looked up at the tonga man's face and saw a sneering horse's head there staring at him!

He shrieked and jumped out of the racing tonga, fell on the road and fainted . . . he was rescued  moments later by a #chowkidar (security patrol) on the night beat. . . "

That was one of the many stories going round when I joined the university.

Monkey Bridge, also know as #Bruce's Bridge, was built c.1866 to cross the Gomti River linking Lucknow University on the northern bank to the Chattar Manzil on the southern bank.
"There was formerly a bridge of boats here; the present bridge was built in 1865, and completed in 1866, under the superintendence of Mr. Bruce, the Municipal Engineer." (archive)

Towards the begínning of 1960s it was decided to replace this narrow, low, flood prone ageing Monkey bridge with a sturdy new four lane higher level bridge. The 'haunted' bridge was to be demolished.

Construction work started. The pillors of the new bridge, however, kept developing defects endlessly and there was no progress for quite some time to the utter desperation of  the engineer-in-charge. Then one night, as the story goes, the engineer was visited by a holy man in his dream and was advised to construct a temple of the monkey God Hanuman on the river bank at the site of the new bridge.

A small temple of hindu God Hanuman ji came up soon

and it was followed up successfully by a new imposing #HanumanSetuBridge.

The Ghosts of monkey bridge, if there were any, disappeared.
And the #GhostStories are no longer heard. . . .

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