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 .
