AGE OF INNOCENCE

Tulku , this one is for you . And Esha and Kushi - a story for you when your father was young .

AGE OF INNOCENCE


“ Ma , you don’t love your son . This is not the way to treat your boy . Come babu , we shall not stay in this house any more". Face purple with rage , Chichad picked up Tulku and stormed out of the house .

It was an incongruous sight . Chichad a grimy lungi clinging to his sinewy dark body, picked up Tulku , who was as always prettily dressed in a bright smock with a hen embroidered on the top and stormed out of the house . They would return an hour later , Tulku ensconced in Chichad’s rickshaw like a smug little emperor sucking on a lollipop , smiling beatifically . Chichad’s little rickshaw bell would tinkle contentedly , and we would know that all was right with the world .

By the time he was three years old , Tulku had perfected the art of tantrums . In a house where we lived with our grandmother and several neighbors who believed that Tulku was born with the express purpose of being adored , it was not a difficult feat .

Tulku timed his tantrums perfectly – always when there was someone around to pick him up and give him whatever he had demanded . And one of his daily demands was to be taken out by Chichad in his red rexin covered hand drawn rickshaw every evening. My mother and grandmother were a little uncomfortable with this arrangement : I suspect partly because of hygiene concerns or perhaps the loss of income it meant for Chichad . Nonetheless , Tulku’s tantrums were always timed with Chichad’s entry into the house , with its inevitable outcome.

Chichad was our water bearer in our Manicktolla house . In those days we had little faith in the Corporation’s ability to supply the requisite quality and quantity of water , and so all water for cooking and drinking purposes was brought in large aluminium buckets , twice a day .

The Bihari rickshaw pullers who plied their trade in our narrow lane had the stamina and strength to perform this strenuous task and at a nominal rate . We had several of these rickshaw pullers doing this , and Chichad was one of them . Once a year they use to vanish like a migratory flock to Bihar to work as agricultural laborers. Tulku for these two or three months use to disconsolately wander around like a dethroned emperor . Even his tantrums lost their strength and passion when Chichad was not there . My family use to anxiously worry over him and take him for medical check ups at the unnatural calm . I think we all used to breathe a collective sigh of relief when Chichad came back.

Chichad came from a small village in Madhubani district of Bihar . His father died when Chichad was five years old . He fell into a disused well walking back one dark night across the rice fields . Chichad’s father was twenty three years old when he died and his mother nineteen .

His mother remarried after a couple of years and moved to a different village , looking after four stepchildren and sundry sister and brother in laws . Chichad , neglected, grew up wild and unschooled , beaten when he refused to work in the family fields . At fourteen he ran away from home and boarded a train to Howrah. There, as migrants will , he found himself a group of his community at Manicktolla . Biharis had a flourishing trade in rickshaws , laborers who worked in scrap iron trading shops and unloaded trucks at the fresh market at Manicktolla.

The worldly possessions of these migrants comprised a tin trunk garishly painted in canary yellow , shocking pink and banana leaf green. Each had a little brass lock , the keys to which was threaded through a string worn around the owner’s waist . We looked upon the trunk as a Pandora’s box and were immeasurably excited when Chichad opened it one day to display his possessions.

Two baggy half underwears to be worn under the half lungi , two lungis , one sleeveless vest and one trouser . A picture of Ram and Hanuman , smeared reverently with colour and crumbling at the edges and a small plastic pouch bulging with coins - his savings. And of course , a little box of snuff , which he took a frugal pinch of after a days hard work . Chichad’s chest swelled with admiration when he saw the look of unmistakable awe and covetousness in our eyes and rashly promised us a trunk a piece when we were a little older . I dreamt for many days what I would keep in the trunk and where I would hide the keys.

Chichad slept under the portico of our house , along with other rickshaw pullers .The the seat of the rickshaw served as a pillow and when he slept , his arms stretched protectively over his trunk. During rains when the sprays lashed the portico , they could sleep no more , but sat huddled in a relatively dry corner and in soft murmurs sang songs from their childhood – mostly about Ram’s bravery , Hanuman’s devotion and Sita’s disconsolation at being apart from her husband. Perhaps this is when they remembered their wives and families left behind at small and remote villages away from bustle of the big city .

A rickshaw pullers earnings those days would have been around three to four rupees ; a fare could be as low as four annas . This earning was jealously hoarded and frugally spent to be collected and taken back home . Chichad’s meals comprised ‘chatu’ for eight annas for lunch and dinner . It was nourishing and filling and gave him the strength to pull two or sometimes even three or four passesngers over moderate distances.

One or two rickshaw wallas would sometimes bring back mango pickle from their homes in an old Horlick’s jar , which would be carefully shared by their close group of friends. The ‘chatu wala’ use to be located right in front of our house , and we used to watch them eat , carefully mixing the chatu with water , kneading to a firm consistency in a spotless aluminum plate with a raised edge and a ‘lota’ filled with water . The eight annas also bought a sliver of onion and a spicy garlic chutney as accompaniments.

When they had finished eating , they would carefully wash the plate and ‘lota’ and return it to the chatu wala. We would have died to partake of this heavenly feast , and on special occasions we were allowed to buy ‘chatu’ , which we would mix ourselves squatting on the floor . It tasted heavenly , even though our plates were stainless steel and we had no ‘lotas’.

When Chichad was eighteen , he went back home for the first time , a prosperous catch with two hundred rupees of savings . He was promptly married off , his bride all of fifteen years . At nineteen , Chichad was a father , and at twenty one , he had a son who was Tulku’s age .

In those days , wool was not available in civilized balls . My grandmother bought skeins of wool , which had to be carefully unraveled into balls . This was painstaking work , and my grandmother used to summon Chichad for this task . He used to sit at her feet with the skein around his knees and wind the wool into balls. During this time he kept up a non stop chatter – talking about his life and his dreams. We were two small huddles sitting beside Chichad , and Tulku’s huge eyes would glow darkly in excitement and adventure as he tried to get as close to Chichad as possible to be a part of those dreams.

Chichad’s dreams were magnificent in their simplicity . He wanted to save enough money to go back to his village and open a pan bidi shop . That would give him enough money to help him build a ‘pucca’ house and put his son to school . That was very important to him .

“My son will study like babu ,and go to school everyday .”

School was ten km away in another village , which was no distance really for Chichad . He would sit his son astride his shoulders and make that trip four times a day , for a better future . His son would be a primary school teacher and when he was twenty one he would get him married . His eyes lit up as he foresaw his young daughter in law bringing him lunch at his pan bidi shop every afternoon. He would have two buffaloes and once a year he would come to Calcutta to bring the rich pure ghee from his buffaloes for us .

Chichad chewed contentedly on the left over roti and ‘gur’ which was his remuneration for rolling up the wool and dreamt on .

When Tulku was six or seven , we moved from Manicktolla to Kankurgachi , about ten km away to a block of flats . We had guards at our gates and our neighbors were professors who had moved from USA to India . There were imported perambulators and second hand station wagons and Corvettes . We nodded politely to their children who spoke with strange accents and missed our neighbors – Rekhadidi , Chitra , Neri terribly . We even missed our Chatu wala ,who gave Tulku a red plastic horse as a farewell gift .

Kankurgachi had plenty of water – twenty four hours a day . There was no need for a water wala any more . But Chichad still came , though clearly uncomfortable in this alien world where he had to climb four flights of stairs and had to press a bell to enter the house . He came with his rickshaw trudging ten kms , to give a young boy his rickshaw ride , a boy who was the same age as his long unseen son .

As things will be , over time Chichad’s visits to Kankurgachi dwindled . Those were troubled times – the Naxalite movement was in its incipient stage , and Kankurgachi being a new area used to be a little uncertain in terms of safety . We heard of bodies being dumped in the pond in front of our house and by early evening Kankurgachi used to bear a deserted look , so different from our little lane at Manicktolla . By this time Tulku had also started appreciating the relative superiority of a second hand Corvette over a hand pulled rickshaw , and while he was still very happy to see Chichad , the rickshaw did not exercise the same attraction as before .

I saw Chichad infrequently after that , when he used to come over to me as I waited to catch my schoolbus at Manicktolla . He wanted to know how Tulku was – was he taller , how much taller , was he eating well ? Did my parents scold him still , did they buy him lollipops everyday ? Did he still cry when he went to school every day ?

By this time , I had become a citizen of a modern high rise building and my friends were born in the USA – a long way from the narrow ill lit lane at Manicktolla with its old house and the red cemented portico . I was embarrassed to have others watch me talk to the stringy rickshaw puller in his faded half lungi and grey vest . I think Chichad understood , because I used to see him sometimes in the opposite footpath as I waited for my school bus . He looked at me longingly , his eyes full of questions about Tulku , but never came upto me again.

Chichad continued to be a rickshaw puller and perhaps now carried water up steep stairs into other peoples’ kitchens and bathrooms . When it rained he sat huddled under the portico and thought about Tulku and his long unseen son . And if he dreamt , his hands flung across his tin trunk , it was of his son growing up to be a school teacher and his ‘babu’ being driven to school in a car .

Many years later , another of our water walas – Ram came to Kankurgachi . He brought with him a Horlicks bottle of mango pickle prepared at home and news of Manicktolla . My grandmother , who was then alive , asked detailed questions about who had died , lived and got married in our old neighborhood .

The old chatuwala was still there , as was the ‘telebhajawala’ who used to fry ‘beguni’ and ‘alu chop’ in a black ‘kadai’ while he pumped his ‘hazak’ lantern in the gloom. The ‘belphulwali’ was still plying as was ‘kala buri’, the old half blind woman who used to sell bananas and was my unofficial guardian as I waited to catch my school bus . Neither Tulku nor I was very interested in Ram’s narrative , we had almost forgotten Manicktolla.

“ And Chichad ? How is he ? Is he still there ?” My grandmother asked , when Ram was almost leaving .

Ram was initially embarrassed and then upset . And while we listened to the last of Chichad’s story in our modern , smart living room , we were transported – perhaps for the last time to our time of innocence , into the dingy lane in Manicktolla with its red portico house .

Tired of his eight annas of rickshaw fare , Chichad left Calcutta and went back to his village . He tried for several jobs – but jobs were scarce . He then took up a radically different occupation , he joined a gang of dacoits . They used to raid villages and steal grain and money . If there was resistance , they fought with sickles and knives , fatally injuring or killing people.

One night , Chichad was not so lucky . He was cornered and almost beaten to death by villagers whom he had attempted to rob. In a rage , the villagers then threw kerosene soaked hay on him , and burnt him to death when he was still alive .

We mourned Chichad – not the man who gave up his dreams and died brutally . We did not see the bloodied face and his half dead body writhing in agony as the fire consumed him . Nor his young son , who probably had to leave the village in ignominy and is now perhaps a day labourer in a city and dreaming his own dreams. Neither did we mourn the small pan bidi shop that will never be.

We mourned Chichad in his grimy lungi pulling his red rexined rickshaw , the little brass bells ringing contentedly , entering our lane in the dusky twilight . His face almost cannot be seen in the gloom , but his white teeth gleam in the dark . The indescribable fragrance of alu chops mixed with bel phul assail our senses . And there atop the rickshaw , is Tulku , a little emperor , sucking on a lollipop and smiling triumphantly .

Then and Now

Then and Now is in two parts .

The ‘Then’ had been written a while back , in a sentimental and nostalgic hour . I had stumbled upon a very old friend of mine with whom I had lost touch for over twenty years . In the half day that we spent together , it took us about half an hour of taking stock of ourselves as we are now ( who is more grey , put on more weight , is more successful et al )before we travelled back two decades into another time.

The incessant honking of lorries and squabbling of auto rickshaw drivers faded into a quieter hum of the tinkling bells of hand rickshaw pullers and the raspy croaks of a hundred frogs who lived in the marshy green opposite our apartment .

My friend’s daughter sat quietly in a corner , prepared to be politely bored by us for the ten minutes her mother mandated she must spend with us. The polite boredom rapidly transitted into surprise , horrified amusement and finally perhaps unexpected envy as the recollections of our childhood progressed .

That was a moment of truth for us . Sadly we realized that our children know and will remember us as we are now ( not the best time of our lives in any case !) We are parents – and that by definition endows us with wisdom – so we always know what is better for them more than they do , have decided careers for them ( the ones we wanted for ourselves and didn’t manage ) and in the best of times faintly embarrassing .

That evening however , my friend tells me that her daughter showered upon her an unexpected accolade “ I didn’t know you had such interesting lives ! Did marriage to Baba make you so boring ?" And finally , the death knell of my friend's hopes of her daughter taking over her flourishing law practice ." Is it because both of you are lawyers ?”

I leave my friend to sort out that one .

So , I wrote “Summer of Seventy Five “ for my friend’s daughter . And then , hoping to see the same positive re-appraisal in my son’s eyes , made him read it too . A new truth dawned . Our daughters may want to know us as we were , our sons want their mothers to be boring old mothers .
“ I always knew there was something peculiar about you ….” He said .

So , here is the peculiar story from our past .

THE SUMMER OF SEVENTY FIVE

Once in several lifetimes perhaps , we are blessed with a friend who is a kindred spirit . My friend Rangini and I were so blessed .

We met at a music school in the neighborhood euphemistically named “ Suranjani” – which means beauteous sound . Sadly , despite our parents’ touching optimism and our passionate music teacher Kamaladi - we never could get even the basic notes out with any semblance of tunefulness .

We discovered our lack of musical genes and passion for romance simultaneously .We were both around ten or eleven years at that time ,and embraced Mills and Boon romances much the same way as a young turtle blindly and single mindedly heads for a water source through sands and myriad predators .

We were strongly discouraged by our parents , and Rangini’s elder sister , who was the inadvertent supplier of books . Expectedly , the discouragement simply strengthened our resolve : we read in buses ( the book covered in a modest brown paper), under dimly lit staircases , under bedclothes with a flashlight .

Thus , along with a strong sense of romance , we also acquired weak eyes and a dogged persistence in reading paperback romances . A mild shake of a math or a history textbook ( those tended to be fat ) would have a paperback falling off .

Such concentrated doses of romance had its inevitable effect .By the time we were fourteen or fifteen , we looked at ourselves in the mirror and no longer saw tubby round-eyed girls in thick glasses. We had hour glass figures and wore light summer frocks . Our blue eyes were a mixture of innocence and mischief . We blushed easily , looked ravishing in pale blue swimsuits and lived in picturesque English cottages .The only lack in our paradise were the tall dark and handsome men which our counterparts in those romances kept tripping over .

In time ,we graduated to “mature “ romances like 79 Park Avenue and Adventurers . We shivered deliciously when we thought of having the ungrammatical but passionate protagonists in American paperbacks as our lovers We fantasized over Christopher Plummer and Peter O Toole ,( Sound of Music and Lawrence of Arabia were the only two movies we had seen at that time ) till impending exams cut short our fantasies . . We were no longer the shy and blushing Mills and Boons’ heroines ; we were confident , gorgeously dressed brunettes , sipping martinis and ravished by Hollywood heart throbs .

In retrospect , our existence at that time was rather tragic . There we were , two gorgeous woman - imprisoned in dreadful school uniforms , wading through the morass of school work and forced to eat fish curry at dinner .

Despite being the essence of femininity , I still had to routinely get into physical fights with my younger brother to keep him in his place . How easily I flowed from one existence to another – something that only the young can do .

By the time we finished school , Rangini and I decided that the only way to meet tall dark and handsome men was to be a secretary to a tycoon . The tycoon would naturally be tall dark and handsome . ( We realized much later that the key target group for the publisher were bored secretaries who wanted a bit of escapism in their lives)

Be it as it may , we enrolled ourselves at a premier short hand and typing school at Russell Street . I shall gloss over the horrific dismay expressed by the two sets of parents , who had nurtured ambitions of their offspring joining the Indian Foreign Service or practice at the Supreme Court .

Traveling by crowded minibus to Russell Street at peak office hours and being trampled , squashed and squeezed by unattractive and assorted males put enormous strain on our tenacity and sense of romance . However , we persevered , and managed to read between the two of us , a new book by Mario Puzo – The Godfather . The book had pictures from the movie , and we had long discussions as to whether we wanted to be in love with Michael or Sonny . Rangini favoured Sonny who appeared to have sexually enslaved the ravishing Lucy Mancini . I preferred Michael , who opened fire and shot down eminent members of the Mafia in acute rage , very much my sentiments towards my co travelers in the minibus .

It was on one of those rainy July mornings that we boarded our minibus - our sandals muddied and hair plastered back with rain. ( We had a ration of one umbrella per month because we left them in the bus with monotonous regularity) . As we struggled to balance ourselves on other peoples toes, we stopped breathing . Sitting in an aisle seat was Michael Corleone – who would be The Godfather 2 one day .

It is with embarrassment that I must admit that we knew Michael by no other name . He never told us .

Our Michael was around forty years perhaps , had the perfect aquiline nose ( ours distressingly was anything but ) , fairish , not very tall and dressed conservatively in a black suit . (Those were the days before everybody had a car ). He looked , from the grainy photographs in our mangled paperback , more like Al Pacino than Al Pacino ever did .

Despite the fact that we looked like a couple of bedraggled puppies , Michael courteously smiled at us and offered us his seat . The lightning that had struck Michael when he first looked upon his would be Corsican wife ( and who later died in an explosion , leaving us to fantasize guiltlessly about Michael) struck both of us simultaneously . We were in LOVE .

The grey dreary day and the damp mini bus smelling of stale sweat vanished in a trice . We were the extreme sophisticates in a Manhattan apartment , sipping martinis and discussing Rolling Stones and Kafka in consecutive breaths .

When we could , we tried to sneak a look at Michael , to see if he was sufficiently enslaved by the sixteen year old soignée ladies to whom he had given up his place . We were not discouraged - he listened with enraptured attention to our witty conversation , and once in a while , a devastating smile lit up his face . In fact the whole of the overcrowded minibus was enraptured , but we didn’t care .

With deep regret we alighted at Russell Street ( our bus fare allowance would not allow us to extend our journey ) and spent the rest of the day in a romantic delirium . That was a Friday .

The weekend was complete confusion . Being shortsighted , I shaved off a substantial part of Rangini’s eyebrows in a misguided attempt to get that perfect arch ( beauty parlours in those days were for wedding make up only). And I ended up with a mildly lopsided bangs , when she tried to give me the elfin look that Audrey Hepburn sported in Roman Holiday . We giggled hysterically at every conversation to the complete mystification of our parents , and stood for endless hours in front of the mirror . A battle erupted when my mother mildly suggested that I needed to oil my hair , and Rangini refused to eat fish on Saturday , as it could make her smell on Monday .

We were ready for Monday .

It still rained , but we were in our smartest clothes : I, in my only Levis pair that I shared with my brother and a blue oversized shirt ( my father bought my clothes) and Rangini identically dressed in pink – which was not oversized ( her sister bought her clothes) . I also saw with disapproval that she had stuffed a couple of hankies in her front , which made her look like a teenage Dolly Parton .

We had to rapidly get off three or four minibuses , before we were asked to pay the fare . Michael was not aboard. The fifth one made our day . Michael did not have a seat , but he moved so that we could hold on to the seat back better ( neither of us crossed the five feet mark ). He smiled at us politely . Perhaps the intensity of our welcoming smile surprised him . After a small hesitation he asked us where we were going .

The floodgates opened , and we gave him a carefully edited version of our lives ( we didn’t want to sound too eager , and our natural distrust of older people also tempered our adoration of him).
He showed remarkable interest in us , congratulated us on our excellent secondary results , asked us what we liked to read and which subjects interested us . We would have preferred a greater interest in our personal lives and the kind of people we were ( rational or emotional , funny or serious … you get the drift ) but there was little of that . We attributed this to his being a perfect gentleman .

Our romance with Michael progressed satisfactorily . We met him five days a week , forty minutes of bus journey . He knew all about us , our schools , our plans , our preference for older men (“ young boys were so callow” ) – to which he agreed with perfect gravity . He was well read , read a lot of American plays . We immediately became members of the US library and at a breathless pace read copious numbers of plays .

For the first time in our lives , an adult treated us like bona fide members of the human race and not with nascent suspicion as we were used to .

We trusted him implicitly , to the extent that we confided our yearning for tall dark and handsome tycoons . We also told him about our adoration for Michael , and lent him our over-thumbed copy of The Godfather . Naturally we did not tell him that he was Michael .

Michael’s reaction to our confessions was a little disappointing . He simply laughed and said that we should focus on our studies and that there was enough time left to fall in love . And in any case , he stated , passion and romance were much hyped up emotions – there were other things than love .

We immediately concluded that he was forsaken in love or had an unhappy marriage – to be so cynical about love . We wondered how we could comfort him , a difficult task given that we only met in overcrowded minibuses .

Rangini decided to tuck in a couple of more handkerchiefs down her front , and I tried to look less like a pillowcase by tucking the sides of my shirt with safety pins ( I hated sewing).
Sadly , Michael seemed impervious to our burgeoning feminine charms . This , we agreed , was the correct thing to do , as being overcome by passion in a minibus would be awkward . Undeterred, each of us dreamt how Michael would be when he overcame with passion in a less crowded moment .

The culmination of our romance came the day when Michael invited both of us to a movie – the 3 pm show at Metro , North by North West .

The moment was not one of pure elation . This was the first time we felt quite out of our depth in this adventure .

Would he invite us to a restaurant post the movie and take us into a secluded cabin ? Would he take us on a taxi ride on the deserted Red Road ? What would we do if he expressed preference for one of us over the other? And, despite being passionately in love with him, how would we introduce him to our parents? Michael did have a couple of grey strands! For the first time in our lives Rangini and I did not share our fears with each other .

Michael did not seem to notice our slight withdrawal . He told us the theme of north by North West , regaled us with the plot of Arsenic and Old Lace – another Cary Grant movie and finalized the time we would meet at Metro – 2.50 pm . We belatedly realized that we didn’t even know his name – so there was no case of leaving a cautionary note naming him , in case we turned up as headless corpses in a sack .

However , we were not without gumption . Also , the fatal attraction was not dead yet . We decided to go to the movie .

I tidied up my study table , Rangini her cupboard . I even graciously offered my Levis to my brother . Did not rebel when I had to eat a pallid fish curry and rice at night . Our parents as always were mystified over the overnight transition of their rebellious children to dutiful daughters .

We were somberly dressed on our date . Rangini did not stuff her shirtfront , and I deliberately chose a ridiculously baggy shirt . We were half and hour early to the theatre .

At 2.45 pm , we saw Michael walking towards us – looking exactly how Al Pacino would have looked on a Saturday . His eyes smiled warmly at us ; Jack the Ripper had probably smiled the same way at his potential victims . We desperately looked around for an escape , but he was upon us.

“Aditi , please meet my two young bus friends , Rangini and Hemangini . Rangini , Hemangini , my wife Aditi , and my son Siddarth . He studies in Don Bosco in class Ten , and sits for his Board exams next year .”

Michael brought forward a particularly repellent looking boy who would never grow up to be Michael . The three of us glowered at each other . Michael had an adoring look in his eyes when he was introducing the repellent boy , quite different from the mildly embarrassed look in our fathers’ eyes when they had to perforce introduce us .

Aditi was a vision in pink – tall and slim in a pink saree , very much like Michael’s Corsican fiancée . She had a lovely smile and laughing eyes .

She put her hands lightly on Michael’s arms .
“ My husband keeps talking about his two young friends . I am so happy to meet you . Did you really join Mrs . Dunford to meet handsome men ?”

I remember nothing of the movie . I shall never watch it again. In the darkened hall , Rangini and I held hands tightly – in despair . Our eyes burned , with unshed tears and embarrassment .

Michael solicitously bought us packets of popcorn during the interval and asked us several times if we were enjoying the movie - triggered perhaps by our unusual silence .
After two hours of purgatory we left the hall .

Michael was enjoying himself . He lightly put his arms around his wife and said .
“ Lets go and eat ice cream . And Sidharth , ask your Didis if they can share their Secondary History and English notes with you . They have excellent marks in both the subjects . Please ask them for all the help they can give you”. He smiled at us warmly .

On Monday , we put all the notes we had in a bag and gave it to Michael . We told him how much we enjoyed the movie and how handsome Cary Grant was . He told us about another Cary Grant movie .

That was the last time we traveled on the 8.30 am bus . And the last time we saw Michael .