Reflections in time

Last week I was invited at someone's place to attend a gathering to celebrate the birthday of their son.  It is amazing that how we are making friends now-a-days, indicative of the fact that I am really now quite "old". This friendship has developed through my son as they go to Kumon and Seema developed acquittance with another Seema, whose son also comes there. That is how we came to know about each other. Is it not strange that we are coming to know about each other thanks to our sons now?! Anyway, I was busy talking to the group there, and quickly realized that most of them were childhood friends. They were talking in great length to each other and were so natural in their talking and behaviour. As they were talking, invariably they would miss me as well as few others who were not from their "old" circle. I did not take it otherwise as it was purely unintentional and perhaps they were also unware of that fact. But it made me to think about my own childhood and my friends of those days. It took me almost 30 years back in time and I started recollecting my old days. And that is how this blog!

I had my childhood spent in two places in Jamshedpur. In the beginning we were living at my Nanaji's place where we used to live together and there were more than 10 family members living in a joint family of sort. Later on we moved to a separate home and we had a completely different set up resulting in new friendships.

L5/47, Kalindi Road

It was until 1978 that we lived at a place called Kadma. Jamshedpur is mostly influenced by Tatas. In fact the city came to its presence thanks to Tatas so it is bound to have their presence felt in every aspect of that place. If I could say that Tatas are as much present as O2 in air which people breathe in, it would not be exaggeration! This house, where we used to live was situated in a place called Old Farm Area. As the name suggests, it must have been a very open place before, good for farming and slowly as the population exploded, it must have paved the way for residence, "company quarters" as it used to be called. We were on Kalindi Road and the house number was L5-47. Kalindi Road was a small road starting from Main Road and going all the way to a field where it ended. There used to be a covered well in that field and we used to wonder as what could be inside that, till date I have not come to know as what was inside. Many kids would tell me that Britishers killed innocent civilians and buried them in the tank, must have been a made up story but that used to frighten me to no end! The Kalinidi road started from Main Road and there were many points of interest at that junction. First there is a big temple called Rankini Mandir at that intersection. There used to be many "Paan Dukaans", a typical convenience and smoke store  near the temple. There were at least 6 of them and all of them selling the same identical stuff. Just beside those Paan Dukans there was a gas station, Petrol Pump, what we used to call. Our school's field started from that point and it went all the way beside the Main Road. That junction also had a shoemaker's shop called "Mochhi Dukan". Babujee always had patented his shops and for our shoe repairs or any leather work, we used to come to him. 

This intersection used to become a very important place during Durga Puja as there used to be a very important Puja Pandal erected in open space across the road. Puja Pandal is a tmporaray shelter erected with bamboos and canopies and decorated so beautifully for almost a week  Puja Panadal is a very common arrangement to make a place for many Pujas celebrated by community, like Ganesh Puja, Saraswati Puja and Durga Puja mainly and many other events where public gathering is expected. It used to be water proof and rain or shine it was good for Puja. Of all the Puja pandals, Mandir's Durga Puja had most significance in our family. We used to go there for Pushpanjali. That used to be a tough exercise for us as we would not eat or drink anything until we had compleed Pushpanjali in that Pandal. It literally meant to offer flowers to God. In Hindu mythology there are both God and Goddess and Durga is one of the Goddesses who is believed to have derived all specialities from many other Gods and Goddesses to overcome the devils. We used to go with Nani to offer the prayer to Goddess Durga on Maha Astami (8th day of the Navarati festival).  After that we would spend couple of hours in and around the Pandal enjoying the foods, toys, shops and all other festive attractions.

Durga Puja used to be a very important event in my life. In front of our house there was a huge open field all the way upto the Main Road. I will write about the Puja in more details later on. Also our school Kadma Boys Middle School was very much visible from our house. It was so visible that when I was in grade 2, I would be watching all the time my house from the main door of the class room. We used to have two shifts in the school and every month the shift used to interchange. I used to go to home during the recess time and that used to be a good time to catch up with the latest happenings in home. But sometimes I used to be in school only. Particularly when we moved to the new house, we were more on our own and we would hardly go to our old house which we then started calling as Nani Ghar. 

Nursery School and Ganesh Puja Maidan 

Before I start recollecting my days in Middle school, I want to go back couple of years back when I was in Nursery school near Ganesh Puja Maidan.  That was a school run in two houses together by one Mrs. Sinha. I do not have a very clear memory of those days but I have faint memories of few incidents in that school. For a year Manoj and I were together in the school. And there were two brothers living in a house behind our street called Sanjay and Ajay. Ajay was of Manoj's age and we used to go together to school. It used to be a good walk and we would talk so many things together while on our way to the school. Ajay was very matured and he used to talk things ahead of his time. Incidentally this was the same nursey school where Ma and Ashok Mama (and perhaps Santosh Mama and Bharti Mausee too) had also studied. Ma used to share with me lots of  funny stories about that school. Let me recollect a few which Ma had told me about her childhood. It so happened that once it rained very heavy and Ma and Ashok Mama were caught in their way to home. As they were completely wet and all their books and bags were wet too, they started playing . One interesting thing during the rainy season used to be the drainage channels which we used to call as "Nalee". The city is very well planned and it has nice wide streets and beside each house there are "Nalees" to have a good drainage. The water flow in those Nalees used to be very forceful and one could enjoy watching the water flowing in it. I also used to enjoy like all the other kids by putting some flowers, leaves, barnches of trees which would fall after heavy storm and rain or paper baots ("naav") in the stream of water and following it all the way by running beside the Nalee. Ma and Ashok Mama being of the same like any other kids of that age started enjoying the water. However, they went a step ahead and started putting their slippers, books and eventually the entire school bag in the water and started seeing the free flow of those items in the stream. Finally when they reched home, Nani was shocked to see them coming empty handed! I do not remember what Ma told me about the events which took place after that, but then that is anyone's guess!

Coming back to the rainy seasons, we used to have rain coat and umbrella. Invaiably in a stormy season, our umbrella would turn the other way and we would be busy fixing that and almost always it resulted in breaking of some of the frames. But we used to have lots of fun standing under a big tree and getting wet little bit from the big water drops falling from the tree while it was raining heavily outside. I used to watch above and there used to be crows and other birds also getting little bit wet and seating on the branches. Then if it was even stronger wind it resulted in some branches of trees falling apart or some papers or clothes flying in the sky. The traffic in the street used to come to a standstill during such waether. I remember once we were on our way back to home. The weather was very cloudy and strong wind was blowing across. It was about to rain. We were thinking of getting a shelter under a big tree. In these inclement weather we used to carry umbrell but invariably it used to turn upside with few sokes breaking and at times if we did not hold that tight, it used to fly away. We used to be very afraid of using umbrella on a windy day. Suddenly we saw Babujee on the other side of the road. We screamed and he stopped for us. Manoj and Ajay crossed the road but I almost  ran behind them without checking the traffic on both sides, something which I am busy teaching Yash now-a-days! There was one scooter coming at a fairly good speed and he had to apply brake just to avoid an accident very narrowly. I was terified and on top of that, the person yelled at me. I could not see him eye to eye. Later on I saw that same person again at "Punditji Ka Dukan". There used to be a book store in Kadma market owned by one Punditji but it was so famous that it had become a landmark of the market. If someone had to give direcion, he would use Punditji Ka Dukan as a reference. The best part was that almost all our teachers were found there in the evenings seating on benches outside. It was more of a kind of Adda for a group of adults beside the book store. Invariably I used to come across our "heddu", our  head master, Ram Charitra Singh and few other teachers as well there. I used to be so terrified to face our teachers and we used to be well behaved and concsious. Sometimes few of them would talk to Babujee and would associate my being his son with the fact that I am also a student of his class. But those were happenings of later years. That day when I was there  I saw that person there in that shop whom I had a narrow escape the other day near my nursery school. I just wanted to run away and hide in one corner as I was so nervous. That person's heart melted to see me behave like that and he took me to a nearby Paan dukan and got me chocolates to befriend with me.

Nursery school was a very homely kind of place for me. I usually would be seating in the last row of the class and sleep for whole time. Once I got up and asked for milk  very loudly - "Duddhu". The teacher did not mind and continued the class but I insisted for couple of times more and then again went back to sleep. Milk was very favourite to me and  I used to drink that a lot. The setting up of Ganesh Puja pandal used to be one of my favourite activities to watch from the classroom. I remember once I watched for almost half an hour the unloading of bamboos from a truck in the middle of the field. I raely used to enjoy the class and always loved to watch activities going on outsie the window. In the recess time we used to have lots of fun. We used to play in the same Ganesh Puja maidan. Just beside that school was a  place called "Mangal Singh Ka Akhada" . As that name was very terrifying, I had developed a very monster like image of that person. I would never ever go close to that place for the fear that I might encounter Mangal Singh. someone had told me that he does not mind killing anyone. I came to know about him later that he had basically encroached that piece of that land and to justify his cause he started one Akhada there. I saw that person in real when I grew up and I was so curious but it was not that great to watch him, to be honest for he was not even close to be a giant or monster like persron!  

We used to catch butterflies during our recess time. There used to be one of our favourite called Gandhee Titlee. I do not know why we termed that so, but it used to be fairly easy to catch. All one had to do was patiently go behind that while it was busy sucking the juice from the flower and in a quick swing of hand catch the butterfly by folding the palm. Once caught they used to try their best to escape and therefore the wings would vibrate in a very quick motion but we used to have other motive. Someone had spread a trick that if we buried only the heads of that butterfly, it would become coins next day. Many butterlies must have scrificed their lives to make me realize finally that it was nothing but a wrong belief. I used to feel very bad whenever I killed them but the curiousity of seeing it beome coin used to take over the emotions! 

I left Nursery school and started my 2nd grade at Kadma Boys Middle school. Before that I had to appear in one examination of Grade 1 with other students. I had never appeared in any such examination before. Before I could finish everything, one teacher came and virtually snatched the paper from me. I did not like his rude behaviour. Later on I was explaining that to Ma and I described that teacher's nose like a parrot and so aptly started calling him Tota sirjee.I saw him many times later and each time he reminded me of that incident.

Topiwala Sirjee 

My first class teacher was one Mr. S.K.Sinha and he used to wear pure white dhoti, kurta and a Gandhi cap all made of khadee. He was called Topiwala sirjee. He was very strict and ahardwaorking teacher. I remember he used to carry a ruler with him all the time and that was his weapon to punish the students if they did not cmplete the homework or were not attentive in the class. I was put in the front seat by him as Nanaji had requested him in person. Those days parents used to request teachers to punish if we did not pay attention ot the teachers in the class, so much of trust they had on teachers!  But there was a big problem.

I was asked to seat in the front seat . I was so homesick that I used to always watch the home through the doors. I would watch who came out in varandah of our home and what else was happening in and around my house. I used to be more focussed at all those kind of activities than what was going on in the class room! I would always see my home through the doors and he was very annoyed to see that I was not at all attentive in the class but was watching out all the time!  I do not know why but I used to enjoy watching who came out or what was happening at my home, more than anything else. Finally Topiwala sirjee gave up and he moved me to the last bench. That place was den of all the stalwarts who had been in the class for few years atleast. Just like all the big particles settle down at the bottom, so were these big burly boys! One of them was Balkrishna Rao who was at least 5 years older than me and he was much like an adult. He used to make me cry by doing some of the activities which were more in line with gays and that used to make me so embarassed in the class. But at that age I was a very shy and timid child. I could not generate enough guts to complain to any of my teachers or in home to anybody. I could see my house from there through the doors.  One positive development was that I could not see my house from there anymore. Topiwala sirjee was so hardworking that he gave us tons of homework before Chhuttee -summer break. And he also cautioned that he would visit each one of us during the break. He indeed came to see me also once and fortunatley I had finished my homeowrk and was sleeping that afternoon. He discussed with Nanaji about my progress over tea and finally he left with satisfaction. Where would we come across teachers with so much of sincerity, dedication and concern for his students? As I grew up, I had so much of respect for him but soon he retired and once in a while I used to see him in Kadma Bazaar.

As I moved to my next grade, I had a new class teacher called Pandey. He was not that impressive but was very strict. He never tolerated any kind of noise in the class. Most of the times he used to give us some nice talk on general topics. I rememeber, once he was explaining about kid's mind. He gave an analogy for a child's mind to be a white sheet where we could put nice colours and images which will become parmanent forever. Same way, he warned us that we should think and assimilate all good things in mind because that will remain with us forever. Just like no one likes to see dirty and ugly things on a white sheet, we should also avoid the same in our mind. How true was his analogy and his that talk has been in mind so fresh even till date, after almost 30 years!

During that period I had many friends in my neighbourhood. Most of them used to live in Kalindi road. There were many but I used to play mostly with Nupa, Bapi, Bisu, Elvis, Nanu and few more. My friend circle was mostly kids from lower middle or lower income families. The entire neighbourhood was not that great. Just behind us were L/4 type quarters and one street below were N1 type quarters - one room house wherein mostly workers and employees of low income group used to live in. The overall set up was very terrible least I could say. But we had no other option but to play with them. Most of the kids were not serious about studies and sometime they would even miss the school and their parents were not bothered. The education was free from Tatas and therefore no one had any pain and perhaps they did not find study so valueable. Evening time used to be full of fun as we used to play with the kids. I could not get along very well with most of the kids. I wanted to dominate everyone and also was very possesive of my stuff which most of the kids did not like. But another problem was that Manoj and I had only one year difference and most of his friends wanted to continue friendship with him and skip me. I was left with no other option but start playing with girls and kids of younger age than me. There were some of the kids who were not clean and they used to have very foul language. But that was the price we had to pay.

In the school  too the students were mostly from lower income group and while some of them were serious about studies most of them were just there for the heck of it. Some of them were much older to be in the class but in a school running for free, no one was very concerned for these problems. Most of the students were not that serious about studies. Some of the older kids were a nuisance and they always shared with us things which we wee supposed to know couple of years ahead. Overall, it had a mixed kind of effect, while we were maturing much faster, we could not comprehend that what effect it might have on kid's mind if he is not matured enough to understand them. But whatever, I used to have lots of fun. Those days Kalindi Road was not pitch road. It used to have red coloured gravels which was called Murum. I remember running on that kind of road had its own pitfalls, like I used to skid or fall and would be bleeding. The best part used to be rainy time when water used to flow like a stream on the road and watching the colour of water turning into red used to have a great joy. I used to be so happy during the cloudy days and my creative side used to be at its peak. I invariably would like to draw something or paint. May be the inspiration used to come from the different combination of shiny colours on the big canvas like sky. Or since we all used to be confined inside the doors, I had nothing better to do anyway!

In the summer time whenever it rained, some of the kids would cover their heads and run to catch the mangos, Bel or guvavas falling fom the trees. There used to be lots of action during the rainy days. Ma, Nani and Mausi used to rush to get the clothes drying up in Aangan or get the pickles or genhu (wheat, Nani used to call that as Gahum) inside before it started raining. Normally the windows would start closing by the storms or strong winds and that will alert everyone about rain which was likely to follow. Those sounds used to trigger lots of actions thereafter. Normally we used to close all the doors and windows and lights were up. We used to feel very secured inside. Afterwords, when rain would stop, I used to have lots of fun watching the refreshing look all over. Of so many trees all over, Gulmohar used to be my favourite one. It used to be fully covered with colourful flowers. After the storm the ground used to be full of those flowers and that was a sheer joy to behold. The sky used to be clear but still some clouds would prevent the sun to throw light and as a result shiny sky used to make it so soothing to see anywhere. We used to play with broken branches of the trees and overall that usd to be the best time to have fun. Slowly life resumed after the rain for me and for so many others. People who had taken shelters under the trees used to start moving back to their destinations. The birds used to be back in the sky. There always used to be stray cows, dogs, goats and cats everywhere and they also would start coming back to their normal action. When I compare with the PVR receivers where one could pause the live TV and resume back afterwords, the rainy days in my childhood could compare well with that!  

Duing one of those rainy days I was home and Mausi had come back from school. She had taken a new bus named Rajnigandha. Around that time the long red bus had stopped and private mini busses started plying on the roads.Each of those buses used to have names like Jai Hind, Azaad Hind, Paalki, Khemka and what not. We had developed a very interseting passion with these buses as we wanted to collect the tickets of these buses. The ticket used to be on the holed computer papers and printed on that. Now I can associate the fact that back in those days the computers used to have punched sheets for the programs to run and once the change in programs were made those sheets became useless. The bus owners must have found it a cheap resource to print the tickets on that. But overall that used to give us so much of happiness that we almost fell in love with that. We started collecting the bus tickets of different buses. The school bus Rajnigandha had started a new kind of ticket and we were eager to collect that. When Mausi told me that it is with her, we could not stop ourselves and started running behind her. Meanwhile it was about to rain and so Ma left the Hansua (knife with stand fo cutting vegetables) open and I fell near that. It was a coincidence that my palm fell on the cutting edge of Hansua.  It started bleeding profusely. I startd crying and Poonam started screamin. Ma thought for a while that it must be something what used to happen daily in home, when we used to hit each other and cry and calling Ma. She did not pay any attention to that until Poonam started screaming - Khoon, Khoon....! Ma and Nani rushed to me. Neither Nana, Mama or Baujee were in home. There used to be a neighbour whom we used to call as Vinit Mausa, he and Babban were called and they took me in the middle seat and I was taken to the dispensary on his Yezdi motorcyle. It was drizzling and I could see the guilt, anxiety and sorrow in Ma's face. When I reached in dispensery, it would normally take a while to get all the formalities completed but doctor immediately asked me to be taken to the dressing area where I was given 7 stitches and little did I knwo at that point that I would neve be able to fold my that finger ever in my life. Till date I can not fold my thumb on right hand. I had to face so much of problem afterwords as I could not hold pen in my normal way and I had to start a new style. It used to hurt whenever I touched that particular spot but I do not know what went wrong but it could neve be recovered.

When I came home, Ma was so anxious to know as what had really happened. I had a big white bandage all over my palm. Every one in home was terrified and Mausi was very apologatic and she was hugging me. I did not know how to react as I had gone through a traumatic expereicne. Later on when Nanaji and Babujee came they also had lots of symapthy for me. In a way I started enjoying so much of attention and care or me! I remember that Ma sked me to seat right in front of the Chulha, while she was cooking food. I did no hav to study now. I was given a full glass of milk with creams on top of it - chhalee, as we used to call that. Normally chhalee was reserved for Manoj as he was considered by Ma as slightly weaker and she wanted to give more attention to his health.

Chulha

Those days we used to have a coal firing stove made out of buckets. The design was such that at may be one fourth from the top of the bucket, holes were made diametrically on both sides and iron rods were fixed diametrically across in those holes which would support the coal. Much like a charcoal BBQ grill. Then the entire top portion above the grills were thickened with clays and there used to be three pojected tops on the top so that cooking utensils could stay firm. I used to enjoy the preparation of the chulha with Ma. She used to do that at the exteme end of the aangan (courtyad). The activity was called chulha pajarna.

Ma would put some wood pieces first and then on top of that coal briquets were put. Sometimes she used a hammer to break them in smaller pieces. She used to put pieces of coal on top of each other in such a way that there used to be enough room for ventilation. Then some kerosene oil was spread and lastly firing the chulha with a match stick. Match box was kept dry and I remember so vividly the horse face made on the cover of the match boxes, so much that it has frozen in my mind and whenever I think of matchboxes, it flashes an image in my mind of that horse! After it required a draft to ignite the coal and wood pieces in chulha, so we would  fan from the bottom open space, from where normally the ashes were removed. The fanning action from below used to take the flame and heat to the top side and that is how the coal pieces used to start igniting. The whole process used to generate a lots of smoke and took almost 15 minutes. In all chulha could stand out as one of the best indigeneously developed equipment which was in action for our day-to-day use.

Each day Ma had to do that twice, once in the early morning and then in the evening-  everyday, non stop for years and years! Rain or shine, feeling good or bad, sick or otherwise, she used to do that! How many of modern peple can even think of doing this in the dark morning of a winter season? Ma used to prepare Nastaa for Babujee early morning before 5:30 on this chulha! Which meant that she had to get up much earlier than that. Once the Chuha was ready, it used to have a handle and she would pick it up and bring inside home. In the process one or two coal pieces would fall and I would be quick to put water on that and hear the chhunn sound and gulf of steam coming out from it! There used to be a very interesting game I played together with Ma called chhunn chhunn Baja. At the end of cooking when all the rotis were baked, the iron plate on which roti used to be heated, called tawa, remained very hot. Ma would keep us at a distance and put water on that which will sound like chhunn..... and lots of steam evaporating all over, enough to delight me! I used to watch that every day. In fact the entire Rotee preparation was a fun to watch. The dough preparation used to be a fun fo me. Ma would use a big open faced utensil called adhaiya and put 4-5 cups of wheat flour. The measuring cup used to be the empty coconut oil can, normally Shalimaar. The process of getting the top emoved was a very crude metod which used to generate shriiling sound. I had done couple of times. Whhat I needed was a rough surface and then run the top surface endlessly until with wearing action the top lid would break away from the can, resulting in a perfect measuring cup!

Once Ma had put the wheat flour in the adhaiya she used to make a hole in the  middle and pour water in that empty space and start putting flour on top of it until it had covered the entire water. Then the entire outer circle would become an empty and the middle portion as an island with flour covering the water. Then Ma would just make a smal hole somewhere and the water started flowing out from there making it look like an island. It may sound silly now but back in those days with no TV, no cartoons and no form of entertainmnt for kids, this used to be one of the most interesting and exciting game for us!