Rai Sahib

  Hazaribagh used to be a laidback idyllic town full of slender but high rising Saal trees, green most of the year. Since the terrain in Jharkhand area is not plains therefore the landscape is an undulating symphony of geography. Sparsely populated, churning out little industrial output; it was like old days Dehradun or Poona, ideal for pensioners to settle down. Roads were lined both sides with green trees. The British built this town with care. Hazaribagh was only an hour’s drive through the jungle of motley trees in the most beautiful rising and falling valley. Even then, as a naïve young Kali Hawa, I used to be mesmerized by the beauty of the nature although the distraction was sitting in a rickety transport cramped full of people. 

Rai Sahib had his ancestral house in Hazaribagh. It was an old-fashioned house with a very large lawn surrounded by a high boundary wall. Lots of Saals and other tropical trees within the boundary. A distinguished family of judges and bureaucrats, Rai Sahib was the youngest among the brothers and also the least ranking in family. His wife was a chic, sophisticated but timid unhappy woman. Rai sahib was not a bully on the contrary, he had a disarming amiable nature and treated wife with due respect and civil manners, when not drunk. Even when he was drunk, he became unmanageable but never a bully or cad hurling abuses and descending to uncouth behavior. It was the exasperation and helplessness, the reason for her unhappiness.

Rai sahib was my boss, He was Dy. Manager, a position on the middle of a small company, where he was neither part of the management nor a full member of young engineer’s group which had joined the recently nationalized private firm. The firm was part of SAIL group engaged in manufacture of firebricks used in Steel Plants. The management was made up of ill-educated fellows who rose through ranks, very insecure and always suspicious but got lucky when the company was nationalized. Now they were suspicious of fresh engineers therefore kept a large distance, made us wait long before letting us in their office to assert their authority, a malicious display of insecure inferiority complex. I hope you get the general drift. Rai Shaib was also new to the firm, apparently, he was booted/transferred out of Bokaro Steel plant where he worked before messing up our lives; obviously due to his drunkenness. It must have been a very difficult job for Bokaro Steel plant to ease him out of the firm, given the fact that he came from a highly connected family and Bokaro had a very militant officer’s association and those were peak days socialism.

Initially Rai Sahib swung between the company of management (they were aware of his influential family therefore respectful to him) and us engineers. Since he had amiable nature and easy accessibility, he was quickly co-opted as our own. We used to have a drinking binge once every month sometimes in a fortnight in our mess. Some of the characters in our group were hard drinkers who could never be satisfied until dropped dead and carried to their rooms. It used to be funny as we will have our cook, a Bengali bloke, cook elaborate meal for us but we hardly touched the food. We always promised ourselves, no more hard drinking, we will eat the damn food this time but as the evening progressed this guy Ajit Bijapurkar(a Marathi guy who spoke flawless Bangla being a resident of this part and nearby Bengal for ages) would borrow a bike and another guy Umakant Basing (an Assamese) on pillion speed away to nearby market hub at Ranchi Road station, knock at some known seedy joint at 11 PM in the evening, get some whiskey at high premium and return. I also went pillion riding on a couple of occasions.

So, we invited Rai Sahib to one of those binge parties, unaware of his alcoholic affliction. It was a bad idea to invite Rai Sahib to our party. It opened the floodgates. Rai Sahib was provided bachelor’s accommodation in the Guest House adjacent to our rooms (quarters as a Bihari would call), every Saturday or on the eve of holidays he would leave for Hazaribagh and come back on Monday. Once he became pally with us, he would get hold of one of us, remove from under his belt the ‘addhaa’ or ‘pavvaa’ tucked in there. He would not care if it was afternoon or the middle of the morning, get hold of a glass pour little whiskey in it and drink the rest from the bottle himself. Soon we began to avoid him but being a boss and fine gentleman otherwise, it was difficult to avoid him. Anyway, the guy was smart enough to find out when our party is (which invariable was on Saturday or a holiday eve, began to skip visit to home at Hazaribagh where his harassed wife lived. I don’t remember if he had any children, if he had they perhaps lived at some boarding school or at one of his brothers was taking care of them. I don’t remember seeing them at Hazaribagh.

It was Diwali perhaps or may be Puja (Durga Puja, just Puja in those parts) which is a big deal in Bihar just like Bengal, and brings in a connected 3-4 days of holidays. He forced upon us an invitation to visit him at Hazaribagh, stay put overnight. We dutifully arrived at his residence in the evening hoping to be firm and in control in deference to his wife whom we had  already met on a few occasions in the past. A la carte was laid out on the table, Mrs. Rai happy to see us but apprehensive of her husband turning the occasion into a disaster.

To cut a long story short, our firm resolve could not withstand the hurricane that was Rai sahib. In the end we slumped where ever we could find a place without touching the food. Next morning, very embarrassed and sorry for our behavior we fled from that home without taking breakfast for which a composed Mrs. Rai beseeched us.

I think within a couple of years, Rai Sahib left our company too, to join some contractor. I too moved away from Ramgarh.

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.

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.

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

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.                                     

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.

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.