DOWN THE MEMORY LANE

DOWN THE MEMORY LANE

The mind is very fickle. You cannot just keep thoughts out of your mind. They keep appearing and disappearing. The older you are the more the onslaught of memories - the more the time-travel into the past. One moment you are a KG student occupying a tiny chair in the class room of the pretty miss Rachael in St. Mary's Convent school

and the next moment you recall your retirement party in the last office - garland and all. You have a group- photo too.

Many a time I have  found myself sitting in the verandah of my cousin's house in Allahabad. For whatever reason, the scene keeps coming back. He phoned me that his dad had come from Moradabad. I hopped into a cycle-rikshaw and came rushing to meet him. And there he was, sitting in the verandah with that relaxed reassurance, with that inimitable disarming smile.

He was a professor - knowledge, character,discipline,compassion and quite a few other attributes all rolled into one. Rare to find men of his calibre now. He was in England when Queen Elizabeth's coronation took place in early fifties and as a kid I had avidly read his letters to my father from England on pale blue onion paper. The handwriting reflected his character. My father maintained that nobody had a more beautiful handwriting and he was right. I am still to see a better one. Both the father and the son had removed the word FEAR from their dictionaries. Fearlessness and honesty make a dangerous cocktail. It invites trouble. And he had ample measures of it all his life.

And then the scene changes. A huge railway engine comes rushing noisily towards me

as I stand on platform no.1 holding my father's finger and it rattles me completely. But, then, I was only a kid - four year old.

Khalkhalji was not a kid !! He was twenty three when the railway engine drove daylight out of him. He had never seen a railway engine all his life up there in khantoli village in the kumaon hills and was for the first time ever on a railway platform.. And the irony is that he would find a job in the railways one week after that engine-fright.

The scene changes again. A stately elderly gentleman, our guest, is eating breakfast in our dining room. He has a  white towel tied to his neck covering his shirt-front and the lap. With each movement of his jaws a bit of water drips from somewhere under his chin - a  medical condition. He is A.D.P.  the cane commissioner - a master of riddles and playing-card tricks. He taught me to make stunning designs with a deck of playing cards with just some flicks of the wrists.

The kaledscope of memory flits to the FIRSTS - the first time I burnt a hole in a paper with a magnifying glass, the first time I had found continued balance while learning Cycling, the first time I made soap bubbles with the help of my mother, the first time I made a pinhole camera in the company of Teemal, our mali's(gardener's) son, the first time I made a matchbox telephone with fifty feet cord and talked to my sister.

And then I see the finality of it all - that last scene in the film ROMAN HOLIDAY where Gregory Peck is standing all alone in the empty Palace Hall , princess Anne (Audrey Hepburn) having gone back into the Palace after the press conference.

That more or less sums up life !!

                       *****

THOSE DAYS

'THOSE DAYS'

The world has changed. It was an altogether different world in those days!!

There was a time when you sent an ordinary telegram home from another city after a journey : "ARRIVED SAFELY". This would be delivered some twelve hours or even later at the cost of the then ONE rupee (over 100 rupees in today's value).

A long distance telephone call was called TRUNK CALL and had to be booked through the telephone exchange. These calls were very expensive, got connected after a long wait and there was so much noise over the telephone line that half the time was lost in high-pitched shouts of HELLO HELLO, CAN YOU HEAR ME!

Affluent people, then, kept huge radio sets prominently in their drawing rooms. The news at night was usually read by Melvill de Mello in his baritone voice after the time-beeps of nine O'clock. And there was that man with a golden voice, Ameen Sayani, who had just introduced the BINACA GEET MALA (the hit parade) in radio - at 8 pm every wednesday. People gathered round huge radio sets at 8 pm sharp and roads were deserted.

Radio, then, connected you to live cricket too as there was no TV. And Vizzi, the usual commentator, was more interested in his own stories and less in the ongoing match so after hearing loud background uproar when he indulged in his story-telling, you did not know what had happened out there on the cricket ground!

There were no inter-connected train compartments then. Each compartment was separate and there were four classes for a railway journey. The big First class coach had two cosy, wide, well cushioned lower berths and one upper. Other classes were Second, Inter and third classes. The third class was aweful and had not improved from what Mahatma Gandhi had found, much earlier. He had this to say:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24461/24461-h/24461-h.htm

Only the rich had cars and there were no scooters except in the film ROMAN HOLIDAY. Middle class people went about the town in a comfotable horse-drawn  TANGA and the poor in a bone-shaker EKKA. Kids always sat in the front side of the tanga as it was safe there but had to brave the horse's unending farts.

City roads were well made and lasted for long years without any pot holes. The one in front of our house was smooth and never needed repairs in my father's entire stay of eighteen years !

At four rupees a kilogram Ghee was the popular medium for cooking. Poor people generally used mustard oil for cooking in north India. DALDA had just arrived in its famous yellow tin. Pasturised butter was yet to come - fresh butter and tinned butter were available in Polson, kaventers brands but the most sought after fresh butter was Aligarh's C.D.F. (abbreviation of Government's Central Dairy Farm) butter.

A donkey with a load of clothes, followed by the washerman, was a common sight on the roads. Clothes were collected from homes for washing and delivered back, mercilessly washed and ironed, after a week.It was usual to find some buttons missing after each wash.Detergent powder and Lalita ji came later and washing machines later still. The most famous washing soap-cake for home-wash, in bright yellow wrapper, was SUNLIGHT SOAP at five annas for a big cake.

The (now ubiquitous) cooking-gas in red cylinders came much later and one had to choose between coal or firewood for cooking. Firewood was used in a home-made chulha made of bricks and clay. Every kitchen had a chimney on the roof to let out the bellowing smoke.

Khaki half pants with suspenders (called GALLICE then) were still there though not very common and in my childhood I had seen some decent visitors sitting in half pants and gallice in our drawing room. Suspenders (gallice) were used to hold trousers as well .

Those were the days when the world believed in the adage "spare the rod and spoil the child". All senior citizens reading this must have had their share of suffering at the hands of the master-sahebs (mas'sab in short). That was, then, a part of the growing up exercise.

There were other things too in THOSE DAYS such as the Blotting paper, copying pencils, holder pens with pure copper pink colour G nibs, manual ceiling fans, gramophones , candlestick telephones and so on.

That will be for another time !

                    *****

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

2.11.14  6 pm.
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

Long ago I was transferred from the mega-city Delhi to a smaller city Nagpur . My friends in Delhi maintained that I was going to a worse place where I would be miserable.  As it turned out, it was very enjoyable to live in Nagpur!

I discovered that small was beautiful!

To start with, for the same monthly rent that I had been paying for a  two rooms set in a multistorey building in Delhi, I had, in Nagpur, a single storey spacious accommodation with a backyard where I could do a bit of early morning gardening and grow some vegetables ! And the air was so clean and the surroundings so green that I started going on morning walks too!

Unless you are very rich, you will be far happier living in a small city.

While I lived in Delhi, there were emormous distances to cover and a  personalised transport was very expensive for me. I had  to travel by bus (there was no metro-rail in those days- even the metro is now getting too congested for comfort!). Regular use of a car or a taxi would mean heavy drain on personal budget. And what a bad experience it was to travel in a Delhi city bus!! It was not for nothing that the Delhi city bus service (named D.T.U in those days.- Delhi Transport Undertaking) was famously known as "Don't Trust Us" !! There were endless waits at the bus stops, unmanageable crowds in buses and unpredictable and unreliable bus timings.

In Nagpur the distances were short. One could save so much on time and petrol! And, besides, driving on uncongested Nagpur roads was enjoyable. In Delhi you had to drive through  mad traffic and heavy smog - which was sheer nightmare!

There was an efficent bus-service in Nagpur on a few routes. But more popular was a cycle-rikshaw - it was always there to take you anywhere and it was  cheap and pollution free. The city was full of big leafy trees, a variety of birds and butterflies! And the sky was real blue unlike the  smog-ridden pale sky of Delhi. On a cloudless dark night I could see the arc of the MILKY WAY stretching from the northern skies to the south. In Delhi you are not even aware that there is somethng called a "Milky Way" up there in the sky!!

We waste long hours in mega cities in travelling. When living in a small city we save this time and can utilise it for reading books, socialising and in indulging in a hobby! Yes one has so much more time in hand in a small city.Life there moves on leisurely - at a slow, relaxed pace. I became a member of a good public-library within days of arriving in Nagpur.

In those days Mr. Nayyar, the old silver-haired  proprietor, ran a popular south-indian restaurant near the Liberty cinema in Nagpur. He always greeted me with a radiant welcome smile as I entered the restaurant. I had made it a point to start the day by having a tall glass of  Nilgiri tea there before entering my office nearby. That was the only place where I could get high quality hot tea in those days. And his idli and Upama were also delicious !

I have always liked south indian restaurants. The stuff prepared there is wholesome, tasty and digestable. My favourite is steaming hot idli with an ample measure of coconut-greenchilli chutney.

A little later in Allahabad too I managed to discover a nice little south Indian cafe near the Lakshmi cinema in the university area. The manager was a lanky Tamil young man who seemed to like me. To reciprocate his warmth I bought a LEARN SPOKEN TAMIL primer and picked up a good deal of daily-use tamil sentences. It surprised him! How I enjoyed it!! Could I have done this in fast-paced impersonal Delhi ?

Smaller cities have family-run general stores (popularly known as mom-and-pop stores in USA). Unlike the super markets and mega stores, these small stores,not far from your house, have a relaxed personalised atmosphere . And they believe in good relationship with customers. Let me recount an interesting incident relating to one such store.

It so happened that once I  forgot my new scooter-helmet somewhere in the market. I could  not recollect where I had left it and had given up hope of finding it.  One day, as I walked down the main market road, a teenage boy came  running from behind and breathlessly said that a particular shopkeeper far back in the road was calling me. I was tired and reluctant to go back but he managed to take me back to a shop. When I reached there, the owner greeted me warmly and handed me over my helmet which I had left in his shop a long time back!

So that is the way you enjoy living in a small city. You have more time in hand, you do not keep wasting time in waiting for a bus or in endless travel. There are no traffic jams, no constant high-decible honking of horns, no traffic lights to beat ! And people care for you.

So small Is Beautiful indeed so far as  living in a city is concerned. If you want to live life King-size on a small budget you must opt for a small city. You have so much to gain there. And the only thing you leave behind is a TENSE, MAD, FAST-PACED, NOISY, POLLUTED WORLD  !!

THE BIG FISH SYNDROME

"THE BIG-FISH SYNDROME"

Somebody close to your house cares for your needs.

In that Mom And Pop Store (some call it General Store) in your town you get a lot of things you need. You have  just to cross the road, walk a little distance and there they are, the friendly people of a family, handing you over the things of your daily needs, for a reasonable price. And you get to meet other town-folks there and chat. It feels so convenient, comfortable and homely.

The other day I found a comment in the internet about the popularity of these mom-and-pop stores. Let me share it with you. (quote):

"I live in a tiny town,
and the mom and pop
store here has a little bit
of everything. It's really
nice not to have to drive
twenty miles to get gas, a
snack, or some over-the-
counter medicine.
The couple who owns the
store decided what to sell,
and they thought of
everything that people
might need urgently and
tried to keep it in stock.
It's awesome to be able to
walk down the street and
pick up some headache
medicine or a bag of flour,
and if I'm about to run out
of gas, it's great not to
have to run on fumes to
the nearest big station."
- kylee07drg

It was not always like this. And it will not always be like this.

You must have seen the cartoon where a #BigFish is about to eat a small
fish, but there is a still bigger fish about to eat both of them ! That is what modern retail marketing is. Big business houses are out there to swallow  up the small stores, changing the face of retail marketing.

If you look back you will realise that our ancestors toiled hard for even the basic needs of shelter,drinking water and food. They had to collect firewood from the forest to cook the food they collected. And they rubbed flint and iron to make a fire.They had also to make their own weapons, their own footwear, their own clothing, their own medicines! It was an awesome task , an unending toil.

And then came the age of marketing - at first it was quite simple, convenient and elementary. John made several extra pairs of footwears. Paul made  lots of hunting knives and Peter made  so many cooking pots. Each one made what he was good at. The extra products thus made by people became 'money' as they paid for the things of their need by giving these extras in exchange. This kind of marketing, known as the barter system, continued for a long time until standardised coins came into use.

Marketing then became more organised. And gradually more sophisticated. And as time rolled on  it  became more and more complicated until, as we see now, it has become extremely cut-throat and war-like.

There was a time, a hundred years back, when everyone knew the most trusted brands of products. And this was  without the help of the modern persistent aggressive advertising, Classic examples of products that needed little advertising were alarm clocks and radio-receivers sets of Germany, T-model ford of USA, the Harris tweeds and the Raleigh bicycles of Great Britain, the Swiss wrist-watches, the Sheffield knives - made in Sheffield , a city in
South Yorkshire , England.
And so on.

It was not without reason that Ralph Emerson had then famously said (quote):

"If you build a better mousetrap, the
world will beat a path to your door".

And they did beat a path to the manufacturers.

That was, as they say, in the good old days. It is not so any more.

I have an issue of the Readers Digest of the year 1949 from my father's collection and you will be surprised to know that it is without any advertisements - (Father Forgets, one of the most celebrated articles ever, appeared in Readers' Digest in that year).

And then in early fifties came the Business Management Schools and the army of MBAs And they turned the world upside down. Now the focus shifted to making as much money as possible at the cost of the society and maximization of the company's profit. They developed mathematical models - the dy/dx of manufacturing, to cut down costs and  they systematically brainwashed the consumer through advertising models based on the theories of Abraham Maslow,  Frederick Herzberg and others. They developed new tricks of marketing, they built new supermarkets and Huge Malls, giving a new definition to retail trade. And they drove daylight out of the friendly mom-and-pop stores.

The change is  welcome to the teenagers of today who are allured by the glitz of the malls but older people were more comfortable with, and are nostalgic about, their friendly neighborhood mom-and-pop stores.

The inevitable cannot ofcourse be stalled. As Lord Tennyson maintained, “The old order changeth yielding place to new " . Change is indeed the way of life.

Fifty year from now the teenagers of today will be old. They will then look back in nostalgia to the times of big Malls of the early 21st century. But a more fiercely competetive new order will then replace these malls with a different face of retail marketing for a yet another new generation ! The Shylocks of the world of marketing will grow stronger and stronger, richer and richer in the name of the so-called democracy which is a far cry from Jefferson's dream of power of the people !

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TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR

TWINKLE  TWINKLE  LITTLE  STAR !

Once upon a time our planet was far less polluted. The colour of the sky in my town was real sky blue.As I walked down a deserted dark street on a moonless night, I  could see the glistening ribbon of the road ahead in the faint glow of starlight! And as I walked  I had a great number of glow worms (I called them JUGNOO) keeping me company, moving along as the modern jet aeroplanes do now - intermittently emitting light ! That was an experience so totally denied by pollution nowadays.

Nobody then knew what  smog was except, may be, in a few big industrial cities in the west. In those days, on a cloudless moonless night, the clear black sky was densely studded with  countless twinkling stars against a pitch dark background. It was just like in the popular nursery rhyme.

In the summer months we used to sleep in the open at night. It was much cooler outside. Only the people who have slept under the stars can know what a blissful summer time experience it is! Through the night the breeze brings different pleasant smell as it keeps changing direction. And there is that almost imperceptible feeling that dew is cooling your bed sheets. You can sense the changes in the face of nature through the night. And you wake up to the call of the first cock as he crows to announce the arrival of the wee hours of a new dawn!

The towns, then, were not  crowded as today and most  houses had a good deal of open spaces around them. Most houses had a CHABUTARA in the open in the courtyard. It was a raised circular or rectangular platform of brick and cement, some two feet above the ground. It was usually large enough to accommodate a few cots for sleeping under the stars!

We had a fine Chabutara in our house too and we always sprinkled a few buckets of water on the chabutara which further cooled it. A table fan made it even more enjoyable to lie there.

When I go back on a journey into the past I find myself lying flat on my back in a cot in the 'Chabutara' in the summer months and gazing at the sky, at the countless twinkling stars. Above me in the sky a white band of starsdust stretched from the north to the south (see photo). We called this Akash Ganga (Milky Way). It is a nebulous white haze and is said to contain upto four billion stars including our own Sun within its fold. I wonder how many of today's kids have time or inclination to  gaze at the milky way or the constellations !

As I lay there I found most of the stars moving stealthily westward all through the night. But the polaris or North Star in the north (we called it DHRUVA) remained rock steady at one place throughout the night and the Great Bears (sapta rishi for us) revolved slowly around it.There is a mythological story connected with Dhruva star (north star). Let me recount it to you.

It is said that the child prince Dhruva, son of king Uttaanpaad was a great worshiper of lord Vishnu. As the story goes, the six year old Dhruva began intense meditation on lord VISHNU and the lord one day suddenly appeared before him in all splendour (see the famous painting by Raja Ravi Verma) and asked him to have his wish fulfilled. Dhruva would ask for nothing worldly. The lord then decreed that Dhruva would live a long and happy life. He further decreed that after his death Dhruva would become a  celestial body which would not  be touched even by the final cataclysm . And that celestial body, according to the hindu mythology, is the star Dhruva in the north (the north star).

To continue with the star gazing, in the sky in the south west there was that bright constellation called Orien Hunters and my father, who had a great interest in astronomy, would explain to me that the three bright equidistant shining stars in the middle of the constellation, were the Orien Hunter's belt. And cutting aross this belt at an angle, I could see a set of faint stars in a straight line making the hunter's dagger! And right above me, far far into the heavens, was a hazy small constellation known as The Kite.

Some of the twelve sun signs of the zodiac were there too and moved steadily through the night, amongst them the shining Saggitarius  peeping through the haze of the milky way. 

As time rolled on, the population and pollution in the towns steadily increased. Houses with big open compounds (with 'Chabutara') gave way to compact housing colonies, with houses close to each other. And the custom of sleeping in the open under the stars became obsolete for want of sufficient open spaces to cool the air.  The Chabutara also consequently disappeared. Otherwise too, with a constant blanket of haze over the towns, twinkling stars have become a thing of fairy tales only and there is nothing out there in the sky to see on a dark moonless night except a few very bright stars.

The time when TWINKLE  TWINKLE  LITTLE  STAR will lose its meaning altogether is fast closing on us!!
    
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THE OLD MAN AND HIS RIDDLES

THE OLD MAN AND HIS RIDDLES

A dozen children, some of them my school friends, were squatting in our lawn that summer evening facing the gentleman I will call ADP. He was sitting  in a comfortable  cane-chair puffing his cigar. He was visiting us from another town.

ADP was master of riddles and children loved him for that ! We looked forward to his visits.

He cleared his throat and began a new riddle . . .

"  . . . Jack used to keep all his socks, twenty black singles and twenty maroon singles - in all forty - in a small cardboard box near the shoe rack. . ."  ADP began. He looked at the kids. They were all very attentive.

" . . That night Jack was leaving for a party at his big boss's house. He was already late and the boss had phoned him. He picked up his shoes and as he was hurriedly opening the box of socks to pick up two socks of the same colour, total power failure occured. Darkness came."

ADP paused for effects, enjoying his cigar. The kids had inched closure in exitement, eyes wide open.

" . . . Jack needed two socks of the same colour urgently. He would put them on later when he reached the boss's house. Now the question is this : Jack cannot see the colour of the socks in total darkness. What is the minimum number of single socks that he  should pick up and rush to his car, along with his shoes? He has no time".

He did not have to wait. Answers came quickly

" He should carry the whole box" said Jaswant. He seemed to have missed the important requirement in the riddle - the MINIMUM.

" No ! ten will be the minimum " said Asha. She was a sweet seven year old neighbour.

And many more kids answered. . .  But they did not have the correct answer, none of them.

" Okay, I will tell you the answer in a while. But, first, here is another. . . . "

ADP was much older than my father. He was tall, with sharp features, sharp mind and a affable temperament. He had a booming voice which even Katwaroo, our cook, could hear in the far off kitchen.

Every visit of his made me richer by a few riddles or playing-card tricks. I still remember the trick of setting playing-cards for a magic card-game  which he had taught me in my childhood. It was done through  a secret rhymed phrase! Here it is :

"Eight kings threatened to save nine fair ladies for one sick knave". It helped me to set cards in this
order:   -8-K-3-10-2-7-9 -5 -Q-4- A-6-J .

"CHASED" was the memory code in which this arrangement was to be set by alternating Club Heart Spade and Diamond (Club Heart >A> Spade >E> Diamond = chased)!

For a long time through my childhood I baffled kids and adults alike by setting cards thus and, as they stole a card from the deck I would in a trice tell what card it was!

ADP had an infectious laughter and he would laugh and make us laugh after tricking us kids with riddles such as this :

"An electric train is running at 60 miles per hour  from Bombay (now Mumbai) heading south east toward Poona (now Pune). A wind is blowing from east to west at 30 mph. In what  direction will the smoke from the train's engine go?"

Why did ADP prefer the company of kids? Was he yearning to revisit his own childhood- a period of innocence, of hope and curiosity sans Cynicism? A child's life is so uncomplicated! And Children get pleasures out of small things of life!

Whatever may be the reason, the old gentleman enlivened the days of my own childhood, making them memorable even now - through the mist of the intevening decades !!

DOWN THE MEMORY LANE

The man who came to our house with the black two-piece candlestick telephone (see photo) rang up my father after installing it. Father was in in his office  and this guy told him that the phone was now installed.

In those days very few homes in the town had a telephone. This was our first phone.

I had noted that "Sahib salam" were his first  words spoken into the circular microphone of the phone mouthpiece to my father.

I was then 5 year old child.

As I stood close to him , watching him closely, s he contribute to speak or the microphone "talk to your son now" and he shoved the candlestick contraption close on my face and the receiver on my ear, asking me to speak to my father.

I was a little boy and this sudden challenge to speak on a strange instrument was challenging and unexpected .This made me very nervous.

I heard my father's voice in the ear-phone.  "Hello son. Are you there ? speak up." he had said. I was surprised to hear my father's voice.

"Sahib salaam", I said abruptly as I did not know what else to say and then I ran out of the room !

Yes those were my first words on a phone. I heard my father laugh loudly in the earphone when I said this!

There used to be manually operated telephone exchanges in those days. Automatic dialling came later. " Number please ", a voice would say whenever I lifted the ear-phone off the hook and I would, in panic, replace the earphone hurriedly back on the hook.

After a few days of hesitation I learnt what to say. My school friend's number was 27 so I was told to just say "two . . seven" into the candlestick's mouthpiece. I did this and the next thing I heard was the voice of my school friend in the receiver. That was sheer magic! (Thank you Alexander Graham Bell).

We kids used to have our own tin-can telephones. It comprised of two (cigarette) tin-cans connected to each other by a very long  thin cord. One of us spoke into a can and the other kid, standing far away received the message by keeping the cord stretched and placing the other can  to the ear. But the real phone was some different. It enabled me to talk with ease and clarity to my friend who lived so far away!

Soon this "number please" guy got familiar with me  and sometimes found time to chat. I fondly called him Verma uncle.

Like any child  I kept asking too many questions about the working of the telephone and the whereabouts of this faceless "number please" chap so my parents ultimately decided to take me to the telephone  exchange.

As I entered the  heart of the telephone exchange building the first thing that caught my attention was the huge plug-board panel with innumerable plug-in cords and the blinking lights. And then I saw someone shifting plug-in cords and uttering "number please". This chap in his thirties turned out to be "uncle Verma" and was absolutely delighted to meet me. While talking to me he kept an eye on the plug-in  board. A tiny bulb would suddenly light up and he , after his patent "number please" act, would plug-in some cords to connect the two numbers and resume talking to me !

That was a long time back, in my childhood, and is now a mere memory snapshot. As time rolled on our phone instrument kept changing. First replacement was a black phone with the transmitter and receiver built into a single hand-set unit which was connected to the cradle-base unit by a wire and rested on top of it when not in use. Then came the rotary dialling phones (and the automatic exchanges). Later we got a beautiful olive coloured push- button phone with buttons bearing number zero to nine and much more (in place of the rotary dial).

And then finally came the wonder of wonders - the mobile wireless phones.

The rest, as they say , is history !!

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 now 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 his 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 the plate 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. You will always clean it 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 DANGEROUS BLUFF

    
It is 9 am. Somebody  is carefully scanning the entire street from inside the Coffee House. You can see his face behind one of those large glass windows of the coffee House, his eyes searching from right to left, left to right.He is looking for a man called Gullajani. His intentions are not good.

Gullajani is given to long walks. He walks to his office in the morning. On his way  he passes this coffee house.Through the large glass doors and windows, he can  see the manager sitting in a high chair at the counter very close to a window.  Sometimes their eyes meet. The Coffee House is always full of people relaxing in those comfortable green cane-chairs, sipping coffee. This is a great place to relax and was my usual lunch-time haunt until Gullajani messed up matters one day.

Something happened that day which resulted in three developments. One, Gullajani gave up the long walks. Two, a man always watches the sidewalk from one of the Coffee House windows at around 9.00am,  looking for Gullajani. And three, I abandoned this lunch-time haunt.

Here is the story.

It so happened that one day our chief wanted coffee and sandwiches to be served to some important officials who were coming to discuss a  project. He asked K.K. our administrative head to have this arranged. It was a routine matter.  We had our own canteen.

K.K. had then just joined the office on transfer and had a very bad habit of going out of the way to please his bosses. He telephoned me.

" You know ofcourse about tomorrow's   4 o'clock meeting. I would like the Coffee House to serve coffee and sandwiches in the chief's chamber. Can you put somebody on this job ?"

"We have our own canteen and they will do everything. No need to go to the Coffee House " I said.

"No No, let us do it in style and get it from coffee House", he said, " The waiter will be a tall, smart one wearing a fresh uniform...and the crockery brand new".

"This cannot be done for the simple reason that this Coffee House does not do any outside catering business", I said.

When K.K. persisted I felt disgusted.

" I think you should talk to mr. Gullajani. May be he can do something". I suggested and banged the phone.

So he called Gullajani.

This silver haired burly middle-aged fellow with a carefree friendly demeanor was a distant relation of the chief. He was a sort of go-getter with no fixed duties. He had ample time on himself and could waste it on talking to the Coffee House chaps.

Gullajani told the admin head that the Coffee House would not do this.

"Now mr. Gulrajani, you have a reputation for getting things done. Don't  say 'No'. You have to find some way",  K.K. implored.

Gullajani said he would give it a try.

I was in the coffee house at lunch time that day when Gullajani entered, puffing his big cigar.He did not notice me and proceeded directly to the manager's desk .The manager was missing from his counter.

"Call the manager immediately", he ordered a waiter. "Very important work"

The manager came rushing, abandoning his lunch.

"Look here mr. manager", announced Gullajani, " You have a great chance of geting a good raise in your salary if you follow my instructions. Now listen carefully. Some foreigners are coming to our office tomorrow afternoon and they are  interested in importing coffee to their country. You have to serve the best coffee to them using brand new crockery. There will be photographs of the waiter serving coffee so the waiter has to be smartly dressed. These photographs will be published in the leading magazines all over the world. Your name will also be mentioned.

The next day a handsome young well-dressed waiter attended to the job. When no photographs were taken he was intrigued. He did not see any foreigners either. And there was no discussion in the meeting about export of coffee.

He went to the chief's private secretary afterwards to clarify these matters and found that the Coffee House had been taken for a ride. 

When he reported this to the manager, they came rushing to our office looking for mr. Gullajani to have a show down. Somebody alerted Gullajani and he quickly disappeared. When the manager tried to create a scene, I firmly told him that the office had nothing to do with what went between him and  mr. Gullajani and warned him that if he entered the office premises again I would call the police and have him arrested for creating disorder in a government office.

To further confound the matter Gullajani came to know that the manager was a  local goon and would not spare him. He was now very scared and proceeded on a month's leave out-of-town. Meanwhile he approached the Head Office and managed to get himself transferred to another town!!

But the Coffee House blokes are still continuing with their vigil. A face appears behind a large window-glass-pane at 9 am and a pair of eyes keep scanning the sidewalks!!

                *********

(Photograph for illustrative purpose only)

CHANDU BABU KE JOOTE

chandu babu's shoes
(चन्दू बाबू के जूते)

He had held the newspaper-wrapped packet close to his chest all the way to Hazratgunj during that half an hour ride in the green auto-rikshaw. It was quite hot that late april evening.

Weaving impatiently  through the jaywalkers in Hazratgunj, he arrived out of breath at the air-conditioned shoe-store and proceeded to the cash counter. The sales manager was attending to a lady and he waited.

The manager turned to him with a clinical smile after handing over the cash receipt to the lady.

"These are the shoes I bought only three months back", he complained in his typical nasal tone as he unwrapped the packet, "and look here! The left shoe upper is already losing shape."

The manager closely inspected the soles and the uppers and frowned. These shoes had been very roughly used without much polishing and the soles were wearing out fast.

" Yes there is a slight stretching in the upper leather here", the manager observed.  "It happens on account of the way one walks and with constant heavy use. The shoe is strong. No problem!".

Chandu babu was not prepared for this kind of a "no problem" response. The problem was certainly there and this fool was taking it lightly ! He had expected that his shoes would be promptly replaced with brand new shoes. When he suggested a replacement the manager raised his eyebrows, gave a mocking smile and told him that it was absolutely out of the question.

"There is no such provision", he emphatically said, " After all, it is heavily used pair with no warranty period at all". And then he ignored him completely and turned to attend to another customer who had, meanwhile, materialised at the counter.

Chandu Babu was a weather-beaten secretariat bird who had been  waging wars on files for donkeys years. "Usko file par aisaa mara... (I gave the bloke such a hiding on a file) ki vo zindagi bhar yaad rakkhega ( that he will not forget it for the rest of his life"  this he used to say and he firmly believed that " the pen is mightier than the sword". Here he saw an opening of another paper-war coming and was fully prepared for it.The next day he opened a brand new file marked "Replacement of shoes" on the cover and shot out a long letter in Queen's english (marking it IMMEDIATE) to the Head Office of the shoe company in Calcutta. He highlighted the irresponsible attitude of shop manager in Hazratgunj and asked for a quick replacement of shoes in order to  "save the reputation of your famous company".

The reply was prompt and business like.

"We regret that as a matter of policy a replacement for a used pair of shoes is not done by the company in the normal course of business. However, If you still so wish, you may send the shoes to us for our inspection entirely at your own cost and risk.If the problem is related to any manufacturing defect, the shoes can be replaced"

He was happily sipping tea on return from office when I visited him that evening.

" Good news !" he exclaimed and showed me the letter. That day he gave me two big pieces of sweets in addition to tea.

"If they simply return your old shoes, that will be a waste of substantial money on a two-way parcel. I don't think they are not going to replace these shoes", I said . His facial expression changed and showed that he did not relish my remarks. He  looked at the two chunks of sweets in my plate and seemed to regret having given them to me. I hurriedly ate them to pre-empt any move to deprive me of the sweets!

The next day I was at the main post office for buying postage stamps when I spotted him coming out of a crowded counter. He had already parcelled the shoes and was excitedly waving the post-office receipt at me.

"I will phone you when the new shoes arrive. I am now getting late" , he shouted as he rushed to his office.

The phone call came after two weeks.

"Come to my place in the evening. I will open the new shoes' parcel only in your presence. I am bringing kaju-mithai (cashew-sweets) and hot samosas for you."

These milk-based sweets were my weakness!

The unopened big packet  of cashew sweets was lying on the central glass-topped table as I settled in an easy chair in his drawing room in the evening. I was only a few moments away from gala feast !

"Relax before you eat these sweets and hot samosas. Tea is getting ready. I will now bring the parcel and wear the new shoes" he said as he dashed inside.

He returned with the shoe-parcel.

Then he proceeded to carefully untie lot of tapes around the parcel. It took some  time.My eyes were rivetted on the shoe parcel. Finally he removed the last wrap with a dramatic flourish and a shout of "here it is".

There was nothing "here". It was an absolute anticlimax ! His dirty old pair of shoes were on display before us, all the worse in condition because of lot of mishandling ! And there was a short curt note with it stating "No manufacturing defect at all. shoes herewith returned to the sender."

There was an uneasy silence for a long time. Then he quietly got up and went inside, carrying the big packet of cashew sweets with him.

I waited for some time and was getting up to go when his wife entered the drawing room .

"He was very tired and has gone to sleep" she announced.

I came out. I could do nothing for him after this fiasco.

When I next went to him after a month he was wearing brand new shoes of a Kanpur based company. He told me that he had now boycotted that Calcutta shoe company for ever and thrown out those shoes.

Then he pointed to the  mini lawn outside his window. There I saw his two cats using his abandoned old shoes as cushions as they stared at me defiantly !! ( see the photographs)

           *************
(Note: This story is NOT a work of fiction. However, the script has, as usual, been redesigned to protect privacy issues of people connected.)

ALMORA'S DOCTOR THAPA

Deep in the Himalayas, in Uttarakhand in India, there is a picture-postcard town named Almora. It has a settlement on both sides of the ridge of a mildly curving five thousand feet high hill which runs in a somewhat east- west direction.There are villages here and there in the misty valleys down below.

Once upon a time, in one of these villages down there,lived a poor lanky boy. He was then in his early teens. This was a good hundred years ago, in the British colonial period. Even in the town of Almora, then, medical facilities were limited even though the town was very 'modern' for that period because of the long years of dedication of one great British officer named Sir Henry Ramsay (1816-1893) Outside the town no medical facilities exsisted.

And so it came to pass that when the boy's old mother fell seriously ill, there was no way she could be helped. He saw his only hope, high up in the sprawling town far above the village. He set out to climb the narrow long meandering track and arrived in the town in the misty morning. There were many doctors in the town but none was willing to come with him to the village for he had little money to pay for their services.

" And so my mother died for lack of medical attention as I stood there watching helplessly. And it was then that I resolved to become a doctor so that I could render free service to those who had no means to pay."he concluded as he refused to accept more than a token fee from my father for rendering a first rate personalised medical service to a sick member of our family.

This narrative dates backs to the misty past, in my childhood, when we were in Almora for a brief respite from the raging summer of the dusty planes below.
.
This messiah of the poor was then a very well known and respected man. He was Dr.Thapa M.B.B.S. who dedicated his whole life to the service of the poor as he had resolved in his childhood. He was blessed with a long life and long years of service to the people of Almora. And yet today he is a totally forgotten man, swallowed in the whirlpool of time !!

( These photographs of Almora were taken 150 years back)

            **************

LOOKING BACK

LOOKING BACK

He punched the man standing before him.The punch landed square on the nose! I shuddered.

In my childhood I had read a nursery rhyme which highlighted the qualities of a boy ! Here it is :

" What are boys made of ? Snips & snails & puppy dogs tails ! And what are the girls made of ? Sugar & spice & all things nice ! "

while I was thus recalling the poem he hit the man a second time reaffirming the veracity of the poet's assessment of a boy. And the man started bleeding from the nose. There was no 'sugar and spice' in this situation !

And then he proceeded to beat up the defenceless man so thoroughly that the man collapsed on the floor. Nobody came to the aid of the victim though the place was full of people. I was a mute witness of this act of violence. I just stood there.

The unfortunate recepient of all these blows was not an enemy. He was not even a bad person. And yet people who witnessed this act of violence cheered him and there was heavy clapping as the victim collapsed on the ground.

I was watching a boxing bout !! He was the champion boxer. He raised his hand-in-red-gloves in a victory salute. And smiled.

That was my first encounter with the man named A.N.U. (as I would prefer to call him here). That was in the university days, way back in time. I had just joined as an under graduate and he had been there for many years, punching noses, dancing in the boxing rink.

Boxing was his passion in those days. Nothing else mattered, not even studies. He was a man of guts and action. There was a hostel in the university precisely for such men -H&H Hostel, and he lived there. And I believe his days in H&H were his most cherished ones.

He was not my type. He was a man of physical action. I shunned violence even in sports, even in thoughts.And yet what bonded me to him was his disarming frankness and indulgent smile. He was an open book and he remained so all his life , through his struggles.

He was a man with dreams and wished to live his dreams, to live his life king size. He did not achieve material success so necessary in life to live such dreams. He had got a teacher's job in a school and it was then, years after the university days that we met for the second time.

He had now left his boxing days behind. He had become a food junkie.He liked good food and lots of it, and would not mind travelling a good distance if there was a hearty meal at the end of the journey ! 'The best sweets are at Natthu's shop', somebody would say. He would be there in double- quick time! ' The best 'Chaat' are in X in civil lines' and one would see him gobbling those next day ! Even earlier, in the university days, I had occasionally seen him at Jagati's restaurant on university road but that was for a different reason.You cannot blame a person wasting money on an occasional visit to a restaurent for a dinner if you have yourself suffered the hostel food.

He was an active man and kept himself trim through middle age. His school hours were early in the morning and he preferred to cover, part of the distance, on foot. So he got down from the bus two stops before the school's stop and jogged rest of the distance to his school much to the amusement of students and the teaching staff !

"Is there anything wromg in this ?", he asked me one day.

" It is a bit unusual thing to do. But if you are comfortable with it, it is okay. "

Later in life I came across him a third and final time in another town where I had settled down . He was now ageing fast and it was taking toll of his body. But he continued to maintain his jest for life - and for his desire for good things. He would still pick up the best shoes at S C Sharma's in connaught place - of course in sales at a heavy discount ; he would get the more expensive sunglasses at BonTon's in a bargain and decent jackets in 'sales' at Raymonds. He was, as it were, living his dream vicariously , on a shoe string budget.

And then I lost touch with him during his final years. Neither he nor myself were, in those days, internet savvy. we completely lost touch with each other.

I still remember him and I do miss him. I miss his infectious enthusiasm for small thing he wished to possess. It reminded me of a child who becomes happy when he manages to get his favourite toy . He lived life to the hilt in his own way. And he never harmed anyone - except, in a way, in those university days boxing matches .

                **********

THE WIZARD OF SARAI KALE KHAN

I was in a place called Sarai kale khan. It was sort of a village within the city and was behind the Nizammuddin railway station in New Delhi.

I crossed the railway line at the level crossing. The main road here goes straight but there was a turning to the right and this road ended some hundred metres ahead. I took this narrower road.

At the end of this road there was a two storey pink-colour house on the left hand side. Across the road and facing the house, there was a large covered hall, open on all sides. Beyond the road's abrupt  end there was a private farm of herbs.

The hall was now very crowded. People were waiting there for the Ayurvedic doctor.

The doctor, clad in a nice white pyjama kurta, now leisurely crossed the road and entered this hall. This was Dr. Brahaspati Dev Triguna (1920-2013), a tall and graceful man with the built of an international athlete. He settled down to see his first patient. Each patient had a token number.

He placed the first three fingers of his right hand on the pulse of the patient before him and observed the beats on all the three fingers. The patient, as usual, started to tell him his problems but he stopped him.

" l am here to tell you the problems." he said as he kept feeling the pulse and noting down the result. He, then, explained to the patient what the problem was.

" Now you can tell me if you want to add anything to what I have told you."

There was nothing to add.

When my own turn came he examined my (nadi) pulse and gave me a precise diagnosis of my health problems without asking me a single question. And then he wrote out the prescription and, handing it over to me, turned to the next patient.

I got up, crossed the road to the double storey building and presented the prescription to the compounder who was in charge of the pharmacy there. Herbs were being mixed here. Several persons were grinding the mixtures for various prescriptions. Most of the medicines were being prepared on the spot by hand. It was an awesome task preparing the prescriptions of over two hundred patients. . . .

Now a word about Nadi Vigyan - the ancient science of medical diagnosis by an analysis of the pulse. A part of the science of Ayurveda this is a gift to the modern world from ancient Indian civilization which vanished, though not totally like the civilization of MAYA of mexico.

In the modern medical practice a doctor checks your pulse normally to see the pulse beat per minute. He does not diagnose the nature of ailment by feeling the pulse.

Now how do you feel the pulse when you have a fever? You place your fingers on your wrist, under the thumb and check the pulse beat. In nadi diagnosis you do something somewhat similar but in a very detailed and precise manner. What you do is that you place the first three fingers (leaving out little finger) in such a way that the index finger is closest to the base of the thumb.

Now,when you feel the pulse. The pulse beats will be felt on the fingertips of these three fingers. The nadi vaidya checks the strength (and weakness) of the beats and the manner in which blood is coursing through the nadi on each of these fingers. It is a profound study and it is not easy to master. The very elementary principle of ayurveda is that VAT (the AIR element)is diagnosed from the index finger, PITTA (the HEAT element) is diagnosed from middle finger and SHLESHMA (loosely speaking you can call this cough element) from the ring finger. This is of course a very rough explanation.

According to the science of ayurveda (the science of life), our health and illness stems from the permutation and combination of the forces of the three basic elements in the body - vayu ,pitta and shleshma.

Dr. Triguna had taken the science of nadi-diagnosis to an astounding level, difficult for a vaidya in the present times to reach. According to the famous Dr. Deepak Chopra of USA , Dr.Triguna was by far the best nadi vaidya in the world. Like all great people he seemed to possess a divine gift (in India we call it SIDDHI) for pulse reading. He was a devout worshipper of God Shiva and there was a shivalaya (small private temple of hindu God Shiva) adjascent to the hall where he saw his patients. On occasions when I reached his clinic much before the opening time (I used to come by train from a nearby town), I found him seated in the shivalaya, deep in meditation.

Dr. Triguna had been given manywawards in his lifetime including the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award by Government of India. He was also the personal physician to the President of India. He held many assignments in the ayurvedic institutions in India and abroad.

Here is a link to Dr. triguna talking to the media in the USA.

http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Brihaspati-Triguna/34617228

THE KING AND THE BOY

Deafening sound of a gun-shot fired closeby !! I was on the roof in the morning sun, reading a magazine for small kids like me. Our bungalow was close to the market.

My mother asked me to get inside atonce. A second gunshot boomed as I was racing down the stairs.

In a while katwaru, our cook, came rushing from the market place with wide eyes and a bag loaded with vegetables.

" The pagal rajah has shot dead the young constable. Police has now surrounded the hotel" he announced.

Pagal (mad) Rajah !! Oh my God !! I had had my close encounter with this Pagal Rajah only the previous evening when I was in the market with my little sister for black-and-white peppermint drops.

As we were paying money to our friendly old shopkeeper, this guy strode in. He was a tall, hefty character with a weatherbeaten face and a cocky gait. He looked like Hollywood's gun totting John Wayne.

He immetiately got interested in us.

"well young man," he addressed me in a barritone voice (and I liked his calling me, a half pant clad kid, a young man!), " can you tell me who wrote these lines : 'for men may come and men may go but I shall go on for ever".

Good heavens ! Only the other day our teacher was reading this poem of Tennyson to us ! I told him the name of the poet and also the title of the poem - 'The Brook'.

He looked stunned. "Absolutely correct. I can't believe this !" he exclaimed "well well , young man, you certainly deserve a prize for this".

And he ordered the shop keeper to weigh a pound of  the best peppermint drops for me.

It was while I was showing reluctance to accept a gift from a total stranger that I saw stark fear in the eyes of the shopkeeper.

"Don't refuse this.Take it and leave the shop atonce", he whìspered handing over the packet.

Rushing back home I saw my father in the verandah, relaxing in an armchair, sourrounded by the blue aromatic smoke of a  hand-rolled cigarette. I narrated the incident.

"My God ! He is that 'pagal'(mad) rajah" said my father, "give this packet to some poor boy. And avoid going to that shop for a few days".

And now that Rajah had shot down and killed a cop !

A barrage of shots now suddenly erupted while katwaru was emptying his vegetable bag. It continued for a while and then it was suddenly all quiet. And soon traffic resumed on the road beyond our spacious front lawns. Katwaru now went out again and came back shortly with the story.

It came to pass that the rajah came back from his estate near the Nepal border the previous evening and had taken lodge in his usual hotel overlooking the road crossing. He was accustomed to the traffic constable saluting him in the morning when he sat in the balcony. This morning he saw a new cop right under him at the crossing. The cop looked
young, confident and tough. And the cop did not know the erratic and eccentric Rajah.

This cop did not salute the Rajah. The Rajah felt insulted and after a while ordered the cop to salute him. The cop looked up and then ignored him. This was unacceptable to the rajah.The rajah then went inside and came back with a double barrel gun. He raised it and fired a shot close to the cop's boots. And as the cop looked up, surprised, the Rajah commanded " Now salute !".

The cop shouted back that he would get the madcap handcuffed. The next moment a gun shot boomed and the cop was dead. The Rajah had shot the cop in the head.

When the police force arrived to arrest him, the Rajah started firing indiscrimately at them and seriously injured a cop. He was then shot dead. . . !!

I revisited the city of my childhood recently after donkeys years . Our sprawling bunglow has now been replaced by a huge shopping complex. The area around the main crossing has also been cleared, including the old hotel, to make room for wide roads. But to my delight our childhood old peppermint shop was still there !

When I entered the shop, the old shopkeeper's son (now himself an old man) was handing over a few cadbury's chocolates to two tiny tots, a little boy and his sister !! It was just like my ciildhood days!

I smiled back as the boy and the girl looked at me with a fleeting smile.

I did not ask them any question on Tennyson !!

            *********

(the photographs are for illustrative purpose only)

CHITTORGARH

CHITTORGARH

It was a huge super-deluxe tourist bus. It managed to negotiate the narrow entrance point, at the foothill, on the road that took you up through sharp hairpin bends to the top. The driver was a well built young man who was perfect in managing the roads. An ordinary driver could not have taken such a huge bus through those sharp hairpin bends.

When the bus arrived 'up above' at the chittogarh fort grounds we heaved a sigh of relief and had a birds eye view of Chittor town below and the chittor railway station. ( Buses were not allowed to go up on my subsequent visit two years later. Auto rikshaws had then been introduced to ferry the tourists up and down for a reasonable payment. A wise step ! ).

I had seen so many forts earlier - the red fort of Delhi and the Allahabad fort for example. These are noted for their grandeur-in-stone. These forts are essentially massive strong fotified areas into which army and people retreated when under attack by a much more powerful enemy batallion, in order to protect themselves while reassessing their strategy.

Chittorgarh was a different cup of tea altogether. It is not just a massive fortified structure, it is a small township atop a hillock and the hillock itself has been fortified. In a way, thus, it entitles itself to be one of the largest forts in the world. It is a vast flat land up there. There are roads, trees, vast water catchment areas and grass lands. There are temples , magnificent buildings and ofcourse the famous VIJAY STAMBH, a breathtaking tower that takes you up through a winding staircase for a good view of the whole area around and the lands yonder! Vijay stambh was, as the name suggests, constructed to commemorate a victory.

And at Chittorgarh there is the LEGEND of the valiant Rajputs, of Rani Padmini ; of the 'Jauhar' (self immolation) of hundreds of women when Allauddin Khilji broke through the resistance of the valiant rajputs to get what he had come for - the stunningly beautiful Rani Padmini, the Queen of Chittorgarh.

In the company of a good guide you can 'live through' a period now buried deep in history. The guide takes you to the room where Allauddin khilji saw Rani Padmini's reflection in a huge mirror while she stood in the adjascent room. The guide takes you to the ground where, in the year 1303 CE the rajput women consigned themselves to fire, to save their honour, in the ceremony called Jauhar. The very ground on which I stood was the theatre of one of the bloodiest pages of Indian history and the thought sent a shiver down my spine. It was a very spiritual moment for me. I felt that I was myself actually witnessing those events unfolding before me - events of centuries far back in time, the war cries, the battles, the jauhars, the mystic singing of Meera bai the sufi saint, and the courage of queen Karnawati the grandmother of the great Maharana Pratap. There is a legend of Karnavati sending a Rakhi (the sacred thread that a girl ties on the wrist of her brother during the hindu festival of Raksha bandhan) to moghul emperor Humayun when chittorgarh was under seige by Bahadur shah, asking for help. Humayun abandoned an ongoing military campaign to ride to her rescue, thus her name became irrevocably linked to the festival of Raksha Bandhan .

I will be remiss in these reminiscences if do not mention the great son of Rajputana, Maharana Pratap (1540-1597) who dedicated his entire life fighting the greatest of the moghul emperor, Akbar. While he could not recapture Chittorgarh , he recaptured vast areas of Rajputana. His last epic battle against Akbar at Haldighati (june 1576) has been immortalised by the hindi poet Shyam Narain Pandey in his epic poem HALDIGHATI.

The journey back into TIME being over now , our bus left the fort on its long journey back to Delhi. As the bus travelled downwards I had the strange feeling of stepping out of the pages of history into the material world of the day. Somewhere inside me was the feeling that a long time back, in another life, I belonged to this place, Chittorgarh, which will always be remembered for the valour of the Rajputs men and women.

Legends never die. As Tennyson puts it, "men may come and men may go but I shall go on for ever".

Chittorgarh will always be there . . . far into the future , in timelessness!!

             ***********************

THE SYMPHONY OF TRAINS

THE SYMPHONY OF TRAINS

I have always had a great fascination for trains. I have always had a great fascination for uncrowded big railway stations platforms of small towns.. I have always had a great fascination for those earlier-era station masters of small stations appearing on our way who stood at attention, dressed in a black uniform, and kept waving a green flag as the whole train, including the window where I sat, swept past them leaving the station behind until it disappeared at the horizon !

As a child I often used to walk down with my little sister to the railway station of our town. It had a very long, wide and glistening platform no.1 and this platform had the town's best books-and-magazines stall.

We loved children's books and magazines. Tripathi jee, the Always-Smiling-Ticket-Collector at the main entrance gate knew every school-going child who regularly visited the AH Wheelers' railway book stall of the town. So we never ever purchased a platform ticket and always returned his smile! And an interesting thing about my childhood was that, as we entered the main platform, we were overwhelmed by the 'blissful aroma' of fresh books and magazines that came wafting from the book-stall two hundred yards away! A child has an awesome smelling power. Of my earliest days, I remember being aware of the presence of my mother or father in the room with my eyes shut !

A train journey from Delhi to the south in a first class lower berth has always been fascinating to me. If you want to know about the moghul Emperor Babar, you can  know about him by reading the history text-books. But to know him inside-out you have got to read TUZUK-E-BABARI ! Train travel, First class lower berth, from Delhi to the south was always as fascinating an experience to me as reading TUZUK -E-BABARI. In one you know the real Babar, in another the real India.

From the window of the moving train the constantly changing scenerio has been ever so fascinating! And no one in those days missed a glass of the delicious ITARSI STATION milk, the purest tastiest milk of good old days (not any more though!).

Things have completely changed now. We have lost a way of life, acquired another. Gone are the days when time moved very leisurely, when one had time for a long chat with the neighbour at the wicket gate outside, when children played together outside in the fresh air.

Satellite T.V. and internet has drastically changed the society. It has changed the way we interact socially. We have no time for others now. I see young friends sitting around a restaurant table with each one busy with their Cell Phones ! Today 'games' are not played in the open but on the smartphone. Today 'ginger bread' is not a bread nor is ' ice cream sandwich' a food item ! The younger generation do not talk to each other except on cell phones! It is an addiction which has made everyone a slave of internet. 

The result is that the big brother can keep a constant watch on you . From thousands of miles away anyone  who is computer educated, can pinpoint your location to the name of the street and  the house number where you are residing.

I can feel Orwell smiling in the grave ! He only mis-timed the title of his famous "1984 " by a few decades.

Times may have changed but trains still keep moving along the railway line which is half a mile from where I live. In the stillness of the night when the city sleeps I still clearly hear TATAK . TAKK . .TATAK. . .TAKK . TATAK . .TAKK. . as trains roll along the railway track..'. It is a symphony to my ears! I know that it will never ever change- " For men may come and men may go but I shall go on for ever "

(the photographs,courtesy wikipedia,are for illustrative purpope only)

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THE SYMPHONY OF TRAINS

THE SYMPHONY OF TRAINS

I have always had a great fascination for trains. I have always had a great fascination for uncrowded big railway stations platforms of small towns.. I have always had a great fascination for those earlier-era station masters of small stations on our way who stood at attention, dressed in a black uniform, and kept waving a green flag as the whole train, including the window where I sat, swept past them leaving the station behind until it disappeared at the horizon !

As a child I often used to walk down with my little sister to the railway station of our town. It had a very long, wide and glistening platform no.1 and this platform had the town's best books-and-magazines stall.

We loved children's books and magazines. Tripathi jee, the Always-Smiling-Ticket-Collector at the main entrance gate knew every school-going child (who visited the AH Wheelers' railway book stall) of the town. So we never ever purchased a platform ticket and always returned his smile! And an interesting thing about my childhood was that, as we entered the main platform, we were overwhelmed by the 'blissful aroma' of fresh books and magazines that came wafting from the book-stall two hundred yards away! A child has an awesome smelling power. Of my earliest days, I remember being aware of the presence of my mother or father in the room with my eyes shut !

A train journey from Delhi to the south in a first class lower berth has always been fascinating to me. If you want to know about the moghul Emperor Babar, you can easily know about him by reading the history text-books. But to know him inside-out you have got to read TUZUK-E-BABARI ! Train travel, First class lower berth, from Delhi to the south was always as fascinating an experience to me as reading TUZUK -E-BABARI. In one you know the real Babar, in another the real India.

From the window of the moving train the constantly changing scenerio has been ever so fascinating! And no one in those days missed a glass of the delicious ITARSI STATION milk, the purest tastiest milk of good old days (not any more though!).

Things have completely changed now. We have lost a way of life, acquired another. Gone are the days when time moved very leisurely, when one had time for a long chat with the neighbour at the wicket gate outside, when children played together outside in the fresh air.

Satellite T.V. and internet has drastically changed the society. It has changed the way we interact socially. We have no time for others now. I see young friends sitting around a restaurant table with each one busy with their Cell Phones ! Today 'games' are not played in the open but on the laptop. Today 'ginger bread' is not a bread nor is ' ice cream sandwich' a food item ! The younger generation do not talk to each other except on cell phones! I can feel Orwell smiling in the grave ! He only mis-timed the title of his famous "1984 " by a few decades.

Times may have changed but trains still keep moving along the railway line which is half a mile from where I live. In the stillness of the night when the city sleeps I still clearly hear TATAK . TAKK . .TATAK. . .TAKK . TATAK . .TAKK. . as trains roll along the railway track..'. It is a symphony to my ears! I know that it will never ever change- " For men may come and men may go but I shall go on for ever "

(the photographs,courtesy wikipedia,are for illustrative purpope only)

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