RUMINATIONS

THE BOOKS YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE

2020-10-01T06:43:00.000-07:00

While meandering through the huge bookshelves in the colossal Harvard Book Store at Boston last year, I stumbled upon a corner interestingly named as, “THE BOOKS YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE”. I kept on browsing in that nook for half an hour or so and would have continued for some time more had my wife not dragged me out. She always does that. She thinks that the books are more addictive than cocaine for me and tries to shield me.

Anyways, the idea stuck in my mind and kept sticking even after we returned to our homeland. When this accursed pandemic swooped upon this planet and our life expectancy came under severe threat, the idea surfaced. Why not make a list of twenty all-time best books and read them in this forced isolation clamped upon us in these serial lockdowns?

I had been a student of English literature and fiction is my favourite stomping ground, so I started with it. On the top of my list came Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mocking Bird”. The Bible, which sold the largest number of copies in the world, had been relegated to the second spot by this 1961 bestseller. The book’s universal appeal lies in the unique relationship of a widower father with his two children and the racial discrimination rampant in the southern part of US in 1920s. It’s a great book and no booklover should die before reading it!

Next on my list appeared the two dystopian novels, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” and George Orwell’s “1984”. Both are utterly dark and powerful warnings against totalitarian regimes and extreme political ideologies. And both still remain two of the most terrifying portrayals of the future of mankind even after more than 80 years since their publication.

And if you are a lover of this genre called novel you cannot leave this world without sampling something from the platter of Dostoevsky and Hemingway. So, I included “Crime and Punishment” and “Old Man and the Sea” here. The former focusses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodin Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student who plans to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money. Hemingway’s short novel narrates the epic struggle between an old, seasoned fisherman and the greatest catch of his life.

And how could I forget Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22”, the inimitable satire on war and bureaucracy, whose title has become synonym for an absurd or contradictory choice. I placed it on sixth spot, just a place above Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” – the masterpiece of realistic Russian literature depicting the impact of Napoleonic invasion on Russian society through the stories of five aristocratic families.

After this I added Scott Fitzgerald’s “Great Gatsby”, William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” and James Joyce’s “Ulysses”, reaching around the middle of my list. Albert Camus had always been my great favourite. I was in a fix whether to include his “The Outsider” or “The Plague” here, when my son barged into the room to enquire what I had been busy with for the last two hours. I told him that I am compiling a list of books which I or any book-lover must read before dying.

“There are other things more important to be done before dying,” he said without caring to look at my list.

“Like?” my face contorted into a question mark.

“Like inserting nominations in your Bank deposit accounts and….,” he paused.

“And?” I gaped expectantly.

“And writing a will, what else!” he blurted and bolted out.

So here I am trying to contact my Bank for nomination facility and downloading templates for my last will and testament on my laptop.

I shall come with my completed list next time, I promise. Please bear with me.

*************

THE EARTHWORM

2020-07-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

“It is a strange world, Sir. Here earthworms have to prove that they are earthworms, not snakes,” I am reminded of this one-liner, and the person who said it, whenever some stranger comes out for my help from nowhere. A flashback to an episode about more than twenty year ago.

An friend of mine from the army had come to New Delhi to get his wife treated of a kidney stone. I arranged for an appointment at a busy kidney hospital and accompanied him and his wife on the appointed day. We waited in the visiting room while the laser-generated shock was being administered to the patient. After about an hour the doctor came out to say, "Another shock will be necessary to dissolve the stone. If you deposit the fee and bring the receipt in an hour I can give the shock right now.”

Now, there was a problem at hand. The fee for a single shock was rupees six thousand. Neither of us had that much amount and the banks would have closed for the day. The ATMs had not come in vogue. My friend had to return to Leh, his place of posting, that very weekend. If the shock was not given that day, we would have to wait for a few weeks for the next appointment

. With anxious steps, we walked down to the administrative wing and met the accountant. He was a middle-aged spectacled man with an unshaven face and sad, intense eyes. More than an accountant or cashier, he looked like a character from an art movie. He studied our faces and listened to our problem. After asking a few questions about our occupations, he issued a receipt for the amount on our assurance to pay him the money next morning.

When we returned, the doctor was chatting cordially with my friend’s wife. He shook my friend’s hand warmly, “A pleasant surprise Captain! Your wife is the daughter of a dear friend whom I’ve not met for the last ten years. I shall arrange this second shock free of cost. Get this receipt cancelled and take your money back.”

Glad at the turn of events, we again went to the accountant. He took the receipt, put it in his drawer and resumed posting entries in a ledger.

My friend was suspicious, "But sir, you have not cancelled the receipt?”

Looking up, he said," Look Captain, you haven’t paid me anything. Your work has been done. It matters little to you if I cancel the receipt or not. You may leave now."

After returning from the hospital, my friend kept on insisting that the accountant had some ulterior motive for not cancelling the receipt in our presence and that these clerks were known to be greedy and corrupt.

A month after this incident, on a chance visit to the same hospital, I met that accountant just out of curiosity. I asked him casually about his odd behaviour that day. He took a deep breath and said, with a faraway look in his eyes, “Your friend was in distress. I helped him, even took a risk more than I could afford. Yet, he suspected my motives.”

He took out his spectacles, polished them with a slightly soiled handkerchief and added in philosophical tone, "It is a strange world, Sir. Here earthworms have to prove that they are earthworms, not snakes.”

******

TRAVAILS OF AN AMATEUR BIRDWATCHER

2020-07-12T00:25:00.010-07:00

A WORDSWORTH WITH A GOOGLE LENS

It’s not that the green valley in the backyard of my house with its myriad flowers and birds sprouted overnight or within these two months of lockdown and it’s also not that I had not noticed these offerings of nature earlier; it’s just that this infinite expanse of leisure made possible by this forced, but somehow blessed, isolation of extended lockdowns afforded me a chance to enjoy these bounties of nature to my heart’s content.

I live in a somewhat secluded part of Shimla at the edge of a locality called Nav-bahar from where the reserve forest area starts. I don’t have to walk up to the jungle to enjoy the Wordworthian communion with nature. All these pleasures are close-at-hand for me. I am woken up by the chirping of the little birds in the morning – bulbuls, cuckoos, koel or a parakeet or some warbler. Standing at the balcony on the backside of my house or just sitting at my bedroom window, I can feast on the sight of numerous daisies growing wild in the valley and also see babblers or doves or sparrows bustling in and out of the bushes in search of worms and insects and twittering continuously all the time. Every so often, some exotic or unfamiliar birds are also seen perched on the electric wire or an exposed tree branch emitting loud bubbling songs or simply whistling. It might sound unbelievable but I have sighted more than thirty varieties of birds just sitting at my window during this Covid-19 caused isolation.

Though I enjoyed spotting these fascinating birds daily from my vantage points and photographed them as well with my ordinary camera, but my birding experience was soured by my inability to identify or name these delightful creatures. What should I call the beautiful black-headed squealer with blue-tinged wingtips sitting on the top of the dried tree-trump or the owl-like bird I saw landing on the fence?

So I sought the help of books. I ransacked my home library and fished out a hitherto untouched “Birds of Kangra” by Jan Willem den Besten. I found it to be an engaging and well-researched book with over 500 photographs with precise description of the birds in Himachal Pradesh and stories from rich local folklore. But, somehow, it failed to serve my purpose. It was a bit exasperating and fruitless to compare my poorly photographed images with the professional ones in the book to identify the birds observed by me.

Then my son turned up with the solution to my predicament –“Use the Google lens, Dad!” Yes, that was the answer. It’s an AI powered app available in nearly all the smart phones. You just have to point it towards an object or its image and it not only identifies it but also gives all detailed information about it. It is best for identifying books, movie posters, monuments and, yes, – the birds and flowers as well.

Now I point my cell phone camera at the beautiful owl-like creature perching between the bushes or it’s already captured image and press the Google lens icon. It tells me that it is Asian barred owlet which is active during daylight also unlike the commonly known owls. Or that the pale-headed, heavily spotted, beaked bird poking continuously at the stem of Saal tree is the Marhatta woodpecker. And that the countless daisy-like flowers wildly blooming in my valley behind my house, like ‘the daffodils’ of Wordsworth but far less in count, are “the Shasta daisies, the commonly grown flowering perennial plant of family Astercaceae........" I stop short of the technical jargon.

And now, my birding experience or appreciation of nature may not be anywhere near that of a Salim Ali or a Wordsworth, but with the help of this modern contraption, I am thoroughly enjoying the blissful world of bewitching birds and flowers around my abode.

**********

THE MONK WHO LOST HIS FAMILY

2020-07-05T06:03:00.000-07:00

I met him during a meditation course at the Bangalore ashram of Art of Living Foundation. The intimacy between us grew as we shared the same room. A slender physique, an innocent expressive face and pleasant radiant eyes - he was quite a likable person full of laughter and sunshine. But the dolphin smile always dangling on his lips sometimes irritated me. He looked much younger than his age which he claimed to be around forty five.

Working as a computer professional with IBM in USA for the last three years, he had suddenly resigned his job and returned to India. “It all seemed useless somehow. I just sold my car and came back,” he said while introducing himself to all the participants in the inaugural session and added with a mischievous smile, “Oh, an ordinary Toyota, not a Ferrari!” The obvious allusion was to Robin Sharma’s famous book, 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari'. Since that day he came to be known as Monk in the ashram.

He never mentioned his family during our long conversations which touched a variety of topics, from politics and religion to poverty and corruption. He did tell me about his mother living in Pune to whom he seemed to be much attached. But, nothing more than that.

His fixation on Sri Sri Ravishankar, the acclaimed spiritual guru and founder of the ashram, was complete and unwavering. Most of his observations on life in general usually ended with, “Do you know what Guruji says in this context?” And a quotation from Sri Sri’s sermon followed verbatim. The unflinching faith of this USA based computer engineer on an Indian guru seemed astonishing and, sometimes, quite exasperating to me.

Our course consisted of rigorous breathing exercises, observation of silence and austere meditation routines. Sitting cross legged for hours together made my back and calf muscles ache. But still I was enjoying this interlude of spiritual retreat. And the no-holds-barred discussions with Monk at bed-time were more stimulating than anything else. But, somehow, I could not be comfortable with the omniscient all-forgiving smile perched on his lips.

Then the festival of Shivratri came and thousands of devotees swooped down on the ashram. There were huge crowds everywhere. The main hub of activity was the open-air auditorium where whole-night Puja and Bhajans were being performed. I was negotiating my way through a crowd at one of the gates there when my kurta pocket was picked and my i-phone was gone. Next morning, Monk took me to the ‘Lost and Found’ section of the Ashram. We reported the matter to Police also. But of no avail.

I felt very disconcerted at the loss of mobile and was a bit uncommunicative during my bed-time chat with Monk. He tried to console me with the thought that I might get my phone back as the police had nabbed some pickpockets and some stolen articles have been recovered. In the end, he added in a comforting tone, “And moreover, you need not get yourself upset over loss of small things!”

“Small things?” I burst out, “Do you know how much an I-phone costs? If you had lost yours I would have seen how you could smile so peacefully.”

My voice had turned slightly acerbic but Monk was unprovoked, his cherubic smile intact. After a while, he said, “I have lost many things in life, Parmar, perhaps more important than an Apple mobile!” Then, a bit hesitantly, on my repeated insistence, he told me how he lost his family less than a year ago. His 15-year old son died of meningitis and his wife followed the son within two months. I gaped at his face wondering how a person can smile all the time after suffering so much. We really fret too much about loss of things which are not very significant in life, I thought.

On my return, I realised that I had learned more from my maverick room-mate than all the painstaking workouts during my ashram sojourn.

FORTY YEARS WITH A CRAB

2020-06-27T08:28:00.008-07:00

Ever seen a crab?

That horrible ten-legged creature with pincer like claws ready to pounce upon you!

Forty odd years ago I used to believe that such a crab was perched in the heart of every person born under the zodiac sign of cancer.This belief was a result of my numerous encounters with different people. My erstwhile boss, who had been smiling and joking a few moments before, suddenly threw files at my face. The lady–receptionist at the club who blew into a rage when I innocently asked the time by her watch. Or a few of my friends who have the tendency to be irritable without slightest provocation. I found out that a common thread ran through the personalities of all these people. They all had uncertain moods, they were all grouchy, they were all born between June 22 and July 23.

Even at an early stage of my life, my dread of these Cancerian creatures had developed to the extent of being a phobia. So much so that when I thought of getting married, I decided that my partner in life could be anybody but a Cancerian. I would manage to live with a mercurial Geminian, an arrogant Leo, a ruthless Scorpio or even a clownish Sagittarian, but never with a crab.

So whenever a proposal for a marriage came my way, the first thing I inquired of was the date of birth of the girl. I also ran matrimonial ad in a national daily mentioning my priorities regarding the prospective bride and added a stipulation, “CANCERIANS NEED NOT APPLY”.

Ultimately I landed with a wife whose matriculation certificate declared that she was born in the month of April; on the first of April, to be precise. The first few months after the marriage were spent in great conjugal harmony. She completely fitted into my mental picture of a typical Aries girl – a deeply sentimental, generous to a fault, unusually friendly female as if descended directly from Mars. It was when I was settling down to a long and happy married life that things began to happen.

Her grouchy moods began to surface occasionally but became more frequent later. Even my light-hearted comment on her parents or my innocent jokes drove her to tantrums. Scenes of fire-works, flying saucers in the dining room or the broken crockery in the kitchen became a common sight. I was a bit confounded. No, a Aries woman couldn’t behave like that.

Once, during one of our rare peaceful moments together , I dared disclosing my doubts to her. She seemed to be an astrological exception, I told her. She broke into a crazy laughter which went on and on. A typical Cancerian guffaw it was. When it subsided a bit, she revealed the secret. The date of birth mentioned on her matriculation certificate was not the correct one. She was actually born on July eleven.

And here I am, living with my crabby destiny for the last forty years. But situation is not as pitiable or tragic as you might imagine. During the course of years my cancer phobia has been cured to a great extent. I had the chance of having glimpses of the brighter side of her Cancerian personality. Her rich sense of humour, her classy aesthetic sense, her infinite capacity to love and her rare culinary skills redeemed her most creditably.

And regarding the problem of her black moods, Linda Goodman’s book on Sun Signs came to my rescue. It taught me that the passing moods of cancerians are synchronised with the changing shape of the moon. Keeping the track of prevailing phase of the moon I could manage my lovely crab and her wild moods. If it is a waxing phase, I can crack my bawdy jokes or make my flippant remarks. But if the moon is waning, I have to be extra-cautious. She is most touchy and vulnerable during this period.

Now I fondly hope that my life partner of forty odd years chance upon this blog during the period when the moon is nearest to being the perfect, round ball in the sky. I know she will enjoy reading it then and may even appreciate it. But only God can save me if it catches her eye in moon’s waning phase. I can visualize the heaps of broken crockery in the kitchen.

A PAINTING AND THE TALE OF A MATRIMONIAL HUNT

2020-06-20T09:51:00.009-07:00

Sharing a slice of an autobiography with an audience is like baring oneself unabashedly on a crowded grandstand. Still we love telling stories from our lives. Here is one from my premarital days with a dash of fiction thrown in for flavour and zing.

First of all, the painting!

Three horsemen, their faces barely visible as their heads are bent forward with the galloping speed of the horses adorn my wall. A young woman painted it with broad spatula strokes about forty year ago. What became of that girl and how this painting landed on my wall? Thereby hangs a tale!

Now the tale!

I joined Bank’s service at a small sleepy town in Himachal Pradesh sometime in 1973. The Bankers were considered sought after commodity in matrimonial market those days. So the stray proposals for marriage kept dropping in my life also. I ignored them all as I had very strict, somewhat idealistic, priorities regarding my prospective life partner. But one offer came through a close friend who used to join me on drinks almost every third evening. An orchardist friend of his was looking for a match for his sister and my name had been casually dropped in. I vaguely felt interested. A meeting was arranged one evening to discuss the matter. The ice was broken after the first round of drinks. The orchardist told about his sister. She was an architect, doing a government job, homely, talented, not beautiful, but understanding and compassionate. I also placed all my cards on the table. Then I asked for a permission to meet the girl so that we could know each other and make a decision. Nothing doing, the orchardist’s response was a point-blank refusal. Theirs was a traditional family; they could not allow such a meeting. Thus we reached a deadlock. We had a few more rounds of drinks; the orchardist became a good friend. We forgot all about his sister or the matter of marriage.

One year rolled by. I was transferred to Shimla and my freewheeling bachelor existence and the hunt for life partner continued as usual. Some proposals did come my way and I also got chance to interview some girls. But nothing clicked. Perhaps my parameters for a ‘suitable girl’ were too strict to be met in reality. In one instance I did meet a girl closest to my dreams. Her parents had approached me and arranged a date for us. We talked for almost three hours sipping coffee at Shimla’s legendary Devico’s restaurant. Almost all my stipulations for the ideal match got ticked. But at the end she coyly told me that her romantic interest laid somewhere else and hesitantly requested me to turn down the proposal. In another instance, I went all the way to Dehradun to encounter a girl in response to a Matrimonial advertisement. She came to meet me with her own list of priorities and found me woefully lacking in most of her expectations.

I was almost on the verge of exasperation in my pursuit when, one evening, a friend took me to a painting exhibition at Gaiety Theater. As if being swayed by the winds blowing from the future, I found myself standing before and admiring the canvas depicting the three horsemen. I wanted to buy the painting but the organisers told me that it was not for sale.I made inquiries about the artist. She was a girl from an orchardist family working in a government architectural outfit. The name also sounded slightly familiar. All the pieces of jigsaw fitted. I rang up my friend at the small sleepy Himachal town and asked him to tell his orchardist friend that ‘Barkis is willing!’ He knew his Charles Dickens well enough to understand my point.

So that is how the painting and its creator landed in my life, the former being my most prized possession and the latter the most serendipitous thing happened to me in my whole existence. This entire episode made me realise that we do not have any freedom of choice in our lives. Everything is written, everything is preordained – our births, our deaths, our spouses too!

DASH DEPARTED

2020-06-14T03:51:00.013-07:00

An elegy on the death of a monk in the garb of a canine.

Dash escaped this world before this accursed pandemic swooped upon us. Perhaps he foresaw it. He foresaw the days and months of untold miseries for the people whom he loved and the problems his existence might create for them in the extended lockdowns. He had been sick for some time and did not want to add to the troubles of his patrons.

It was snowing in Shimla when he breathed his last, six days before the first Covid19 death in India. The saintly creature as he was, he got a white grave among the flowers in our yard.

The grave of Dash on my patio with a Miranda dog-painting

Yes, he surely was a saintly creature. Sometimes, I had a feeling that he was a Budhist monk reincarnated in a canine form. He could sit for hours together staring at the greenery and the cedar trees beyond the gate of our house, as if meditating upon the problems of existence. He carried an aura of perfect peace and placidness around him. Any shout of anger or bickering in our home made him scurrying to a corner or to hide beneath a table. We avoided our domestic feuds in his benign presence.

Dash lived with us for almost fourteen years. As I scroll through the family pictures on my laptop, I find his handsome figure part of almost every memory, he seems to be present in every important event of our family – be it a birthday or anniversary or a housewarming ceremony. Sadly I realise that our world will not be the same after him.

I remember the day when my daughter brought him as an infant puppy – a beauty with long, floppy ears framing an alert face and light brown silky coat. For almost one year, he did not utter a sound. I had never heard of a dumb or speechless dog. But then a vet told us that he was a pedigreed English cocker spaniel, he would rarely, very rarely yelp or bark.

He was a quiet, silent type but always understanding and quick to learn. He never growled at our visitors but barked fiercely to shoo away the monkeys around our residence. The only person in the world that our Dash snarled at, strangely enough, was the poor raddiwala who came to the house to collect old newspapers. Perhaps Dash understood my affinity towards books and reading material and disliked anyone who would come to take away any of these.

When I took him along with me during my morning walk, Dash liked to run or stroll holding the leash in his mouth. He used to become very playful and mischievous sometimes and ran with rabbit like strides. Once, my son took him to Sector-15 market at Chandigarh. While my son was gossiping with his friends in a square and Dash was running from one person to another in the group, an English gentleman approached one of them and exclaimed, “Oh this beautiful thing is alive! I had been observing it for some time and wondering who amongst you is holding the remote for this toy!” Yes, sometimes Dash looked like a beautiful electronic toy with his long pendulous ears and shining brown coat.

Dash is seen with the members of my family

Almost two months have elapsed since the departure of Dash, but we have not become used to his absence. He is still the favourite topic of conversation within the family and with any visitor to the house as it used to be when he was alive. He enriched our lives for fourteen long years. Every morning when my wife sits for her daily puja, she looks behind her to see whether Dash is also sitting behind her like always.

No, he is not.

THE AFTERNOON WHEN I DIED

2014-07-29T01:12:00.014-07:00

I have always been fascinated by the idea of coming back from the dead and secretly see how the world is missing me or otherwise. Recently, I read a John Grisham novel in which the protagonist feigns his own death in an automobile accident. He secretly watches his funeral from a safe distance. He even visits his wife and comes to know that she had been cheating on him throughout his married life. Ever since I read this novel, I nurtured the secret desire to fake my own death and quietly observe how my near and dear ones react to it. My wish was fulfilled to some extant on a humid afternoon last week.

It was a relaxed Sunday afternoon. I had a sumptuous lunch with my family, which presently consist of my wife and son as our daughter lives in New York. We chatted light-heartedly about the prospects of our son’s marriage. Even our pet spaniel, Dash, looked pleased seeing us all eating together in a congenial atmosphere. Not a usual sight at our household.

After lunch, I stretched myself on my recliner to enjoy my favourite siesta before my evening bridge appointment. I fell asleep instantly and died soon after.

But somehow, though dead, I could see and hear people and observe their reactions. My wife went completely haywire on finding me dead, “Oh mere Bhagwan! My house is completely in a mess and people shall start pouring it on hearing about it. What a time to die - a Sunday of all the days!” Then she shouted at her maid, “Barkha, you have not dusted the furniture this week. Now, be quick. Clean the house before people start coming.” She is known as a stickler for cleanliness and zealously guards her reputation.

I saw my son banging his fist on the wall when he heard the tragic news, “Oh, Papa’s actions have always been unpredictable and untimely. If he had chosen to leave us a month or so later, my marriage could happen. Now it will have to be postponed for at least a year!”

My bridge partner heard the information on his mobile and threw the pack of cards on the table, “Like always he has ditched us. Now where shall we find a fourth one at the last moment?” The other two stared at his face with great consternation and then at the scattered playing cards.

My elder brother, a retired bureaucrat and meticulous administrator, took the news with his usual angry grin, “He had always been careless in his life. Now he dies without completing his nomination details in Bank accounts. He didn’t even write a will. The family will have to go through exasperating paper work!”

The next miracle was when I heard my pet spaniel, Dash, speaking in a perfect human voice. He was muttering under his breath, “They are all making foolish noises without caring to understand my problem. Now, after him, who will take me for a walk in the morning in this household of late risers?”

And I could even see my unmarried daughter living in far-off New York crying in anguish, “Papa, how can you go without seeing me settled in life?”

Yes, how can I? ---- I woke up with a start.

It was almost four in the evening and I was on the verge of being late for my evening bridge. Three impatient people would me waiting for me at the bridge table. Hurriedly, I started dressing. While tying the laces of my shoes, the realisation downed upon me that this world would not be much worse or poorer without me, though a few people will miss me howsoever temporarily that may be.

A CINEMA HALL DOWN MEMORY LANE

2013-10-06T06:57:00.036-07:00

My father had a short stint as the manager of a cinema hall, Randeep Theater, in the small sleepy town of Nahan almost 60 years ago. Aged eight, I was the youngest of the four brothers and we saw almost every movie screened there - a family ritual for us on the opening day. So I was introduced to Hindi Movie world during my infant years and it ran parallel to my life since then. The film posters and scenes from movies decorated walls of our home and were often intermingled with our family photographs.

During our tender years, we especially liked the children movies as it was easy to identify with the characters. The films like “Hum Panchi Ek Daal Ke” and “Jagriti” are still etched in my memory. I remember having wept profusely during the song, “Chalo chalen Maa” in Jagriti. I had lost my mother recently and the touching song had a cathartic effect on my juvenile mind. Action movies containing some fighting sequences were also our favourites. We eagerly awaited films featuring our pet action heroes like Ranjan, Premnath, Ajit, Shiekh Mukhtiar, Mahipal etc. and sometimes requested our father to requisition these movies. More often than not he obliged us. He himself was an avid lover of films and managed the cinema hall with the zeal of a librarian who is also a lover of books or a gardener in love with his plants. He raised his four sons with the same fervour. A widower at the age of 39, he never married again as he did not want to foist a stepmother on his precious children.

I still have the fond memories of Randeep Theater where we were witness to countless movies. It was a medieval bungalow type building made up of chiselled stones. It had a gallery with about 15-20 seats, four box-cabins below it and a small main hall. It may sound curious to a modern cine-goer that the male and female audience were seated separately in the two portions of that cinema hall partitioned by a four feet high curtain. There were separate entries for gents and ladies on both sides of the hall. When the lights went out at the start of the movie a boy ran from the front of the hall to its back holding the curtain sliding with the metallic rings. Similarly, at the end of the movie just before the lights were turned on, the boy ran from the back of the hall to the front drawing the curtain. Even today, when I see a movie in a modern theater or a multiplex, the sound of the curtain sliding on the metallic rings echoes in my subconscious mind at the start of the movie, at interval or at its end.

Another interesting feature associated with that old cinema hall which makes me nostalgic about it was its legendary projectionist, named Bankey. Few people had actually seen him but almost every cinegoer in town was familiar with his name. Whenever there was a power failure or interruption or any flaw in the sound during the screening of a movie, the whole hall reverberated with the vociferous abuses hurled on “Bankey”.

The cinematic experience was altogether different from today. No popcorn or Coca-Cola at the interval, but the smell of moongphalis and fried chanas pervaded the atmosphere. There were no internet or advance booking then, but the long queues for tickets which, more often than not, were broken and a mini-chaos ensued. Sometimes, when a blockbuster movie was released in town, the hushed calls of small-time blackias could also be heard -- “Teen ka paanch”, “Paanch ka aath” -- akin to the scenes from Dev Anand’s Kala Bazaar.

The building of the Randeep Theatre is nonexistent today. A residential colony has sprung up in its place. But we remember our old cinema hall with nostalgic affection. It is still the part of the folklore of this small sleepy heritage town. So is its shadowy projectionist, Bankey. And so is my father.

BIRTHDAY THOUGHTS

2010-10-03T23:55:00.000-07:00

(Nothing is quieter than the sound of hair turning grey)

Birthdays keep reminding us of the distance we have travelled in terms of years. Wedding anniversaries do enlighten us about the length of our monogamous (read monotonous) existence in linear time. But even so, sometimes, the realization of the time elapsed comes as a surprise to us. One relaxed morning, a shaft of grey hair reminds one that he is no longer that young. Or sometimes, like the stunned emperor Shahjahan, he stares into the mirror with all his hair turned grey overnight. Nothing is quieter than the sound of the hair turning grey, someone has wisely said.

For me time has always moved stealthily. When youth evaporated and middle years started melting into old age, I did not notice. But certain stray incidents do stick out in memory which made me realize, albeit with a hint of surprise, that I have crossed a specific age barrier and entered another stage of life.

One evening almost two decades ago, I was returning from my office at Shimla, I saw a jean-clad girl walking with quick steps slightly ahead of me. A perfect hourglass figure, her silky hairs were undulating in the air in rhythm with her sprightly gait. Dying with curiosity to see her face, I quickened my pace. I walked past her and turned my head sideways to have a look at her face. I was greeted by a cheerful smile, “Good evening, uncle.” She was the charming daughter of our next door neighbor.

Uncle! It was for the first time that a young girl addressed me as uncle. That evening I woke up to the fact that I am on the threshold of middle age.

A few years ago, I was chatting casually with a younger colleague, A probationary Officer in our Bank. Somehow the topic of Indira Gandhi’s murder in 1984 turned up. I was describing to him the precise moment the news of the brutal was broken to me. At that time, I was posted at a remote branch in an obscure terrain of Himachal Pradesh. Sitting in my cabin, I was enjoying the calm, sunny landscape of Satluj valley through my window. I was attending to some official correspondence, half listening to the radio commentary of the Indo-Pak cricket match in progress at Lahore. Suddenly the commentary was interrupted, the play being abandoned to broadcast the news of Mrs. Gandhi’s death.

After narrating the episode, I asked in a conversational tone,” By the way, where were you at that that historical moment?’

The officer hesitated a bit before replying, “I am afraid, I had not heard of Mrs. Gandhi at that time.”

I could not believe it, “Why so?”

“At that time, I must be studying in KG or Class one cramming my nursery rhymes,” the officer said with a pleasant laughter. And with a mild shock I realized that a gap of more than twenty years separated me from my colleague.

Presently, I am preparing myself for the ultimate age shock which is not very far. A few years from now, I can visualize myself enjoying my favorite Fashion TV channel in the evening when my daughter comes holding a baby in her hands and exclaims to the little one, “Meet your grandpa, baby.”

A NAGGING EPISODE

2010-10-01T02:08:00.000-07:00

A beautiful relaxed Sunday morning. I am enjoying my newspaper reclining on my favourite chair in the verandah sun taking intermittent sips from the steaming cup of coffee perched on the arm of the chair. The Lady of the House is sweeping the floor with a broom and on reaching near my feet she asks me to shift to the next chair. I do so dutifully balancing the cup of coffee as well as the newspaper on my both hands. After some time she again asks me if I can go inside and sit on the divan so that she may scrub the verandah floor. I obediently collect the pages of my newspaper, drain the last drops of coffee from the cup and go inside. I have hardly reached the editorial page when I again find her formidable figure hovering over me. Now she wants to pull out the bed sheet from under me for washing. Once again I am in the process of gathering up the scattered pages of the newspaper when the opening salvo of the day comes from her, “By the way, can’t you sit at one place and read this stupid paper of yours?”

So that is that. Nagging in its purest form. You cannot dare pointing out a logical flaw in it. And you can protest only at the risk of flaring up a heated argument that you can never win. You know very well that however high you may throw a cat, she always lands on her feet.

The nagging or this habit of criticizing continuously is a compulsion with women, or wives, to be more precise. Show me a wife who does not nag and I will show you a vegetarian tiger. The psychoanalysts say that it is an offshoot of the elemental possessive instinct of the human female. She asserts her right over her spouse by nagging him. And this reminds me of an episode told to me by a writer-friend. I may relate it here as briefly as possible to bring home the point.

This writer had a room in the outer portion of his ancestral sprawling house where he used to sit and work. Engrossed in his creative work he used to forget his lunch hour. His fiery tempered wife had to come out all the way from the interiors to call him for lunch. And it followed a barrage of complaints and reproaches from her. The sensitive soul of the writer could not bear it for long. He bought a small alarm clock and from then on he began to appear in the house punctually at lunchtime. Though the resentment of the wife subsided for a while, she did not look very happy or relieved. Then one day when the writer was enjoying his lunch peacefully in the house, the alarm clock got stolen. The wife raised great hue and cry at the negligence of the writer for leaving his room unlocked. Ultimately she ruled out that they did not afford to buy a new alarm clock.

So the absent minded writer reverted to his habit of forgetting the lunch hour and the old nagging duels at lunchtime resumed. One day, when his wife was away visiting her parents in another town, the writer was sifting the articles in her cupboard. He suddenly discovered that old ‘stolen’ alarm clock concealed between the layers of her warm clothes. For a moment, he gaped at it in utter disbelief. Then the understanding dawned on him very slowly. He remembered her offhand remark at the theft of the clock, “ In a way I am happy that the stupid thing has been stolen. It was trying to take over my rightful place ……”
The writer smiled wistfully. He understood his nagging, shrewish wife in a new light for the first time.