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.