Friday, January 26, 2024

Adventures of Little Babu; Episode : 0

 Sometimes someone suffers but nobody is responsible. Take for example a tsunami that kills lakhs of people, puts millions of lives in misery but nobody is responsible. Similarly for a four-year-old who has not evolved mentally to truly discern fairness or wrong and other subtle causality, things happened without proper cause so did not leave him perplexed. 

Little Babu was terrified of darkness and closed spaces, he was only four years old and his world consisted of talking to himself, running around naked or in shorts and shirt, eating, tasting mud twigs. leaves; generally, live by the moment. The age was at a critical point of transition, to run around naked or learn to be ashamed of nudity, to eat by himself or helped by mother in eating, learn and be thrilled at succeeding in wearing clothes all by himself and other processes of learning. The transition included overcoming claustrophobia and go to a dark constricted lavatory away from the house across the street or succumb to temptation of defecating in open on the small nalla passing by behind it. He knew the rules but those rules were so far malleable. As already explained little Babu lived in a fantasy world, if he got thrashing, he wouldn’t know if it was justified or deserved, for him things just happened for breaking rules which were not clearly defined. 

His father used to be a socially well-respected person and in his own estimation an upright fellow who adhered to all the accepted social norms and took pride in his dealings with society in a civilized manner. And there was this commandant who also believed in keeping his command in order, in neat and orderly way. The commandant, probably a Sikh, had this habit of riding horseback to inspect his domain, to see that his subjects adhered to neatness and accepted social behavior. One day while on his usual horseback round he saw a queer spectacle, a little boy was shitting on the drain behind the assigned lavatory in the broad afternoon. Incensed, he enquired, whose child was at fault. His angst probably was, when the Army has provided descent accommodation and other amenities why should anyone allow this to happen?

 Word quickly reached his father, who was in his office. This was unforgivable act by his child, a blot on his reputation and a huge setback to his image in the society. He carried a cane with a brass tip and brass blob on the handle, in double quick time he reached home with the cane. Meanwhile little Babu unawares of the upheaval, that he had shattered the balance of the afternoon, still naked below waist, in his fantasy world, talking to himself and generally busy in his own world, heard a volley of invectives and then his conscious world became numb as his father’s cane rained down on his body with the ferocity of a man in extreme anger. Every rasping strike left mark on his tender skin and a scar on his subconscious mind. His mind in an emergency maneuver hurriedly allocated space for long term memory and lodged the incident for permanent recall. In the amygdala the emotion that rose was not hurt, not anger but terror. 

So, little Babu hated his father? No, his father remained his role model for a long time until he himself became old. He was terrified of his father and all the older people for a long time.

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Adventures of Little Babu VI

Madan (Secunderabad)

Little Babu walked to school which was about 3 km from home if they went in through the fort (usurped and turned into a command hospital by the Army) and if around the fort probably another half a kilometer. Going round the fort happened occasionally when some big shot was in hospital, so the instructions were given to sentries at the gate to debar kids as they make a lot of noise passing through the wards where this big guy was recuperating. The walk to school was fun but walk to home from school was distasteful and tiresome. The road kids followed did not have much traffic only occasional trucks both civilian as well as military in trade mark olive green. This apart marching columns of “rangroots” under training also passed by evoking no interest in us. We had been thoroughly drilled home instructions to be always on the side of the road whether there is traffic or not.

Puran Sing, a Garhwali and a reluctant Garhwali orderly, was the orderly assigned to Sub Major B R Sharma. His job was to do some domestic chores like polish father’s boots, polish Brass items like belt buckles with a liquid called Brasso and generally fool around. Puran Singh, initially refused to be the orderly so he was court martialed for few days before he acquiesced to be the assigned orderly. One duty of Puran Singh was to ferry us from school in fathers BSA bicycle in two rounds. In the first round he would take Kaka and Kiran being the younger brats and in second round he would take Bhaskar and little Babu. It riled Puran Sing no end that in the second round he would not find us in the assigned place so he would cycle through the road in search of us, sometimes he would not find us at all as we had already reached home and this would really make him mad. We never followed his instruction to stay put at the school, until he returns to get us home, but this was tall order, I mean who would sit there all by themselves in an empty school while he returns from his first round.

Madan, was a nephew of our Tamil (back then every bloke from south was ‘madrasi’, even Vibha would be a ‘madrasi’ not Kannadiga) neighbour. He was probably an orphaned child, called our neighbour, not next door but a door apart neighbour as Mama. Clearly Madan was tolerated as an afterthought in his home not equal but an extra. Madan had no choice, he accepted this as fait-accompli and enjoyed life in all its glory. This neighbour of ours had a radio in his house, a snob item in those times, which blared out Vividh Bharati Hindi songs in the afternoon. Madan also sang with gusto,

जिया हो जिया हो जिया कुछ बोल दो
दिल का पर्दा खोल दो
जब प्यार किसी से होता है .......

But instead singing

दिल का पर्दा खोल दो

He would always sing, no matter how much you drill in the correct words,

दिल का परदाल खोल दो

Once while returning from School past the slope between the Nurse’s hostel, not far from home; some four five of us, talking loudly as kids do, the road was empty, the subject of steering clear of the road came for discussion. Madan bragged that this is bullshit, nothing happens if you walked on the tarred portion of the road and to show off his daring he began walking at the edge of tarred road. Just then a truck passed by in slow speed and as luck would have it swerved just a little for God knows what reason such that it’s rear tyre’s mudguard knocked at the head of Madan, sending him somersaulting in air and landing on the green grass. Behind the truck was a “rangroot” marching column. These marching fellows saw the hit, immediately they broke free from the formation, some climbed the rear of truck, a few pulled open the door of driver’s cabin. As the truck came to halt, they dragged the driver out, gave him thorough thrashing.

Luckily Madan didn’t suffer much injury although he must have enjoyed his somersault through the air and lesson not to walk on the tarmac.

Monday, January 8, 2024

Adventures of Little Babu V

The residential campus was divided in to two parts, the division marked by random vegetation, cluster of trees as well as a temple bang in the middle. There was our side and there was the other intimidating officer’s side and temple as the sentinel between them. The armed forces have tight hierarchical order, a kind of caste system where officers looked upon JCOs as nobodies and JCOs looked at NCOs as nobodies. Temple, not of classy construction was mostly visited by residents of his side.  Temple itself was bland a hall and a small “garbh grah” which hosted the deities perhaps Ram, Sita and Lakshman trio. The purohit had two sons one Devi Dutt and the other Gokulanand, they were Prabhakar and Shubhakar’s age. For some strange reason Gokulanand reminded him of Tulsidas with his long bushy aerial (चुटिया)

Near the temple was an abandoned small pond it’s walls had green moss not too deep, filled with clear water, lots of frogs in it and yet bigger boys swam in it while little Babu stayed at the edge. The kids were prohibited to use this pond, it was dangerous and a sepoy was posted there to prevent children using it. But the boys would nevertheless jump in it as and when they felt. Fed up, one day this sepoy came to the pond saw boys in it, picked up all clothes and took them to his superior and complained about boys not listening to him. Now the bigger boys were swimming with their kaccha-chaddhi on, little Babu barely 6-7 years old was stark naked. He was the only one who walked stark naked home some 2-3 hundred meters from the pond, not embarrassed but worried that he will get a scolding for losing his clothes. 

Now and then, this fellow Devi Dutt, Prabhakar Shubhakar and others would organize 24 hours nonstop Ramayan path. They will go round collect milk, chaaypatti and sugar and some cash for the prasad. A diwan in the hall would be decorated with four banana trees to make a mandap where larger version of Tulsidas Ramyana would be placed and relay recital would begin. Little Babu was too young to be included in the list of reciters but Bhaskar was given a few chances. But it was not the reading of Ramayana that was the high point for him, the night out and drinking tea through the night was the adventure of the occasion. There at night, sleeping on dari with lights on and among the insects and feeling miserable/sleepy was the real adventure.

इति कानपुर प्रकरण


Sunday, January 7, 2024

Adventures of Little Babu IV

The world of little Babu was not composed of myriad complex emotions. All that came later with maturity, life at that age was simple and very basic; fear, awe, happiness and a sense of guilt and a couple more like strong possessive sense. It always filled little Babu with wonder when in the morning he saw thousands of birds, some in formation, some solitary and some crisscrossing the sky; all flying away from the rising sun. This would go on for perhaps half an hour or may be an hour. This relentless flying filled the sky with birds in V formation now sharpening like an arrow and now blunting into wavy form raising a cacophony with their chatter. The same routine was followed in the evening only this time they will be flying away from the setting sun. Curious questions arose in his ahead about these birds but as already told before, it was not little Babu’s wont to seek answers from others rather cook up an explanation himself.

The thorny Ber tree was where they played “Jhaad Bander” even though the tree was thorny they had become adept at climbing up on branches and jumping from there to throw away the short stick from the circle below.  Once Shubhakar casually mentioned that he saw a ghost circling the tree at night, little Babu, incredibly gullible that he was, absorbed the information as the gospel. Thence on his summer nights, sleeping outdoors, became worrisome so much so that one night he actually believed he saw a dark silhouette circling the tree and upon turning towards him disappeared. 

One after noon there was some buzz about a mad man being brought over to MI room. (MI – Medical Investigation, kind of dispensary for minor treatment). MI room was not too far from his house although tucked away among a cluster of trees near the boundary wall. MI room was the place where he got his shots for Small Pox, Cholera etc. therefore it was not a likable place. The gang was raring to go and have a look at this mad man, his own masochistic streak egged him to get into trouble. So, they all trudged along gingerly hiding behind trees. One thing about which everyone was certain that this mad man was extremely violent person. 

When the gang neared the MI room, a small but long shed like building with sloping roof, hiding behind the foliage and tree trunks little Babu saw a very fair complexioned, slender man wearing only white pajama, chained to a metal cot outside the MI room. The man was not very strong but the raw energy and violence emanating from him was debilitating. He was growling with low guttural sound like a wild animal and then suddenly charged with humongous energy raise his chest high like a bow and bring it down with raw power so that cot itself would jump in air. The sheer power of that spectacle rattled one of them to shriek in terror exposing their presence there. Immediately a few members of the staff chased the kids away. But the image of that man in just the pajama exuding inhuman power got permanently etched in a deep recess of little Babu’s memory.                                     


Saturday, January 6, 2024

Adventures of Little Babu III

In Kanpur little Babu briefly lived in a house near the gate of campus later moved over to a bigger house on the other side with a large Ber Tree in front of the house. Here there was a large Gular tree in front of the house. In season it bore tasteless fruits similar to Timla in Shri Badolgaon. Whereas a good Timla fruit will have honey like sap inside, Gular fruit was dry, salty and tasteless nevertheless he along with other kids ate a lot of them after which his mouth will become dry, dull and lose any sense of taste. There were other trees nearby; lots of birds making nests in those trees in particular crows. Now crows are nasty birds, you cannot take “punga” with them. 

In the center away from the dwellings there was a cemented ground with semicircular pavilion where army band came for practice. Next to it was probably junior officer’s mess. Little Babu with other kids would run to that cemented ground and watch with fascination bands practicing. If it was Brass Band, it appealed to him on the other hand if it was Pipe Band, he hated the wailing refrain of the Pipe Band. If the children made ruckus, the supervisor would chase them away. 

One evening after watching the Band practice he detached from the gang and drifted away. Wandering aimlessly, he settled down under a leafy but not very tall tree. As the evening light dimmed, he began his languorous walk home. All of a sudden, a crow started hovering over him and then attacked him with his talons. Little Babu ran furiously towards home in the mean timer crow managed to hit him on his head a couple of times. It was a nightmare, a bewildering senseless attack. The funny thing is little fellows do not have a sense of reasoning, sense of causality therefore no victimhood lament. Surely somebody must have done something to that crow’s nest and it must have mistaken little Babu for the culprit.

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Adventures of Little Babu II

 The world of little Babu was an inverted pyramid and he at the bottom of it. He felt like Gulliver in the country of Giants. An introvert, happy within himself, little Babu found everyone else in personality, dominance as well as in physical body was at a higher level than himself but it were the grownup men who were the real giants towering over him, going to gobble him up anytime. He avoided the grownup with the exception of his mother with whom he felt at ease and even strong. In nutshell he felt very vulnerable in his tiny world. 

In school he was nobody and just an appendage at everywhere else. There was this fat girl who was vivacious, exuberant and to top it all, good in studies. She and a tiny little girl, also good in studies, sat at the top of class; little Babu sat on any leftover seat at the back which suited him, made him less visible. He really was a loser in todays’ parlance. This fat girl was his next-door neighbour and she had taken a liking for him. She would now and then grab him, hold him in tight embrace which probably felt good to little babu, but his natural response was to immediately wriggle out of her grip and when he did she would laugh hysterically. So, one day she sought him out in class, dragged him over to the front seat to the annoyance of her bench mate, the tiny girl. Unable to protest little Babu felt helpless, very uncomfortable and doomed like a goat led to the slaughter house. 

Quite predictably the teacher saw the unusual and in course of time threw a question at him. Little Babu went blank, the question did not register at all. Overwhelmed, he began crying. There at the head of class, forlorn, weak, helpless and unable to defend himself he stood there crying the only option a little guy has. 

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Adventures of Little Babu

As I have already told you little Babu was incredibly naïve and gullible. About seven eight years old, he had this masochistic streak to seek adventure and then curse himself for getting into trouble. When alone bizarre thoughts passed through his mind. One thing was certain, he rarely proactively sought explanation for things which he couldn’t understand or make sense of, rather confabulated or drew conclusions of his own about them. 

Once in the afternoon when most others were having siesta, he wandered off in the walled campus where his family lived in Kanpur. At the back of house there were stray trees some bushes and a winding footpath which led to the boundary wall of the cantonment behind which a road ran parallel to the boundary and beyond that a small flying club sprawled out as far as he could see. Mostly a few little planes lay in the far away open hanger or outside it, a contraption of clothe like a large pipe strung to a pole fluttered to indicate direction of the wind. The wall was too high for him to climb but a fallen tree made a nice bridge for him to climb up on the wall and sit there contemplating vastness of life and universe. Although he had walked out here alone but he was not comfortable, there was lurking fear at the back of his mind. He had heard of “lakadbagha” (hyena) snatching away children in Bithoor, a distant locality in Kanpur dehat. As explained earlier little Babu did not seek out, what a “lakadbagha” was rather drew a mental inference. He decided that “lakadbagha” was a man who has a piece of scented wood that would make little children faint and thus he would put them in a sack and take them away. So, when he saw a haggard bearded man carrying a sack on his shoulder walking towards him on the road, he froze in debilitating terror. Like an immobile rabbit on the road staring at the headlight of approaching car, he sat there as the man walked inch by inch past him. When the man was gone, he came to life. Without wasting a single moment sped off to home.