My 'Brother' Akheel

When I was a little boy, Iraq meant -The Land of the Scud Missiles. Thanks to Pronoy Roy's - The World This Week the incessant visuals of the flying Scuds never left a child's mind. In our campus the big guys would play the "Americans" while the puny little ones would be the "Iraqis". The winter evenings were spent with the Americans chasing the Iraqis all around the children's park. The skirmishes often ended with an Iraqi returning home in a torn woolen sweater. On rare occasions an American would receive an embarrassing black eye in the hands of a worked up opponent. The underdogs would hail him as "Saddam". At sundown we would declare ceasefire and trudge back to study lessons and homeworks. Those were the evenings when juvenile ignorance allowed us to play an innocent charade of a gruesome war. Then the years flew by and I forgot all about the children's park-wars, even as America's obsession for Iraq continued.

Sixteen years later, on the smoldering Texan summer I was walking up to my apartment in the Mexican neighborhood; Almost leading myself to believe that I was Gary Cooper from The High Noon, when I heard someone conversing in what sounded like animated Arabic. Now an Arab in a Mexican town would be like Lawrence, in Arabia, I said to myself. A character so out of place, and yet not. As I approached the iron stairs to my apartment there stood a hairy source of that Arab dialect (the 'hairy' part I knew since he wore an unbuttoned grey shirt). A man with a crow's nest of a head and an overgrown mustache. Akheel was yelling at his friend who was inside his apartment and was yelling back with equal zeal. As our eyes met he flashed an armory of stained teeth. Yes, that was how I first met Akheel. The guy was all you could get wrong in a country paranoid with men of Middle-Eastern decent.You could not tell what he did for a job (except that he volunteered at times to fix my friend's car); It was impossible to tell how he landed in the middle of Texas. It must have been a Colombian boat if you ask me. I had no idea what he was doing in a University town either other than to ogle at girls in pink shorts. He definitely showed no scholarly inclinations, failing consistently to construct a single legal sentence in English. There was "Illegal" written all over this guy. And just to remove any modicum of doubt, he chewed a cheap cigar. This one was Saddam, Gaddafi and Castro pressed in one, right in Bush's backyard.

Akheel was friends with everyone. He chatted all day with  Ronnie the big Afro-American who stayed upstairs. He was friends with Pedro and Pepe the Spanish maintenance guys, the mailman, the burly Bill who owned a pit-bull  and of course the numerous college going girls who passed our property on their way to the University gym. But the worst of his traits was that he called me "Brother". The more I tried to disassociate myself from the creature he interfered with my life. If I was studying in my single room apartment with the door open, he would walk in with that obnoxious cheap cigar (half wet with his slime) dangling from his mouth. He would insist that I let him in as a guest to the University gym. As a student I was allowed to bring a 'visitor'. He knew my gym-timing and would wait by the stairs everyday leaving me with no choice. Once in the gym as I walked in with this rogue in toe I could feel a hundred suspiscous eyes on us. I would try my best to lose him. In the training room while lifting weights I would spot him through the mirror. There he'd be wallowing aimlessly on the indoor synthetic track as the college team sprinted by trying their best not to bump into him. Akheel of course was oblivious of it all for his eyes only cared for the rows of slender legs on the assembly of treadmills. No sooner than I had warmed up for some serious workout that I would feel a prodding on my shoulder. "Let's go Brrother!" came the irritating dictum. Those extra 'r's he put in 'brother' succeeded everytime in pushing my patience to the edge. They had warned me about culture shock at the American Center in Kolkata. An integral part of that education was the famous American syndrome of "rolling the 'r's" (not to be confused with 'arse'). Who would have imagined that I would experience that phenomenon through my Arab brrrother Akheel. Anyway, man learns to survive against many odds and so did I with him as my neighbor.

And then one day we struck a common chord.

I must also tell you that Akheel drove a white mini-van that was in no better shape than the owner. Actually I did not even know if he owned it. When asked he replied that it belonged to one of his 'brothers'. Knowing by now the broad scope of that word I strongly suspected the van to be a stolen one. One evening while I was standing by the front porch sipping coffee Akheel's van wobbled across the street and stopped right in front of our apartment. Out came he with a broad smile and two large carps in either hand. Now life as a graduate student in the US had not exactly been how the advertisements back home portrayed. You could buy a few things from your on-campus earnings; But fresh fish wasn't one of them. Firstly, because you did not have a decent shop near Arlington that sold fresh fish; And secondly, if you did the price was exorbitant anyway. Thus the fish-eater in me was in the process of dying a painful death when his eyes fell upon the smiling Arab holding out his prized catch. He dangled them in front of me as the setting sun glistened on the silvery scales. "Good fish brother; Fresh fish" he said with his typical mischievous demeanour. That evening he told me how he takes his van every Thursday to a nearby stream, where he sits and fishes for hours. He made me believe it was just a fun jaunt with more dividends than effort. By now I had got the sweet taste of the forbidden fruit. So we struck a deal. I was to accompany him on his next fishing trip and we'd split the loot at the day's end. Little did I know that I was shaking hands with the serpent. Thus began our brotherly partnership.

So it was that on a Thursday evening in the summer of 2007 I came home running after attending the day's lecture. I changed into a pair of shorts a casual t-shirt and put on my tennis shoes and hopped into the rear of the dilapidated van, all set to experience the greatest fishing experience of my life. The van gurgled loudly as Akheel revved its engine. Perhaps a case of a silencer gone bad. I thought. As we journeyed I found other components of the vehicle that had reached what in machine lingo is known as EOL (End of Life). It huffed and puffed and spewed carbon-rich smoke as Akheel egged it to maintain the speed on the highway. A couple of vehicles gave a mocking honk as they whizzed by. Akheel greeted them with flashing teeth and a middle finger while I hid my head in embarrassment. The Iraqi sure was learning to give back the surprise punch. While we drove Akheel spoke of his parents, his wife, his children and the rest  of his family. He kept rambling about life in Iraq, at times raising his voice in frustration. I felt that bitter pang of having to live far away from family. But then I did not know what sort of a compulsion drove him from his homeland to the USA. Who knew, perhaps it was a crime he comitted there that if caught might have costed him his limbs, or perhaps his manhood too! I assured myself that there was nothing I could do to empathize with his predicament. I concentrate on my fishing.

Inside the van was expectedly a mess. There were disassembled fishing rods (mostly dysfunctional from their looks) bundled under the seat. A small plastic container lay on the seat. Inside it was a polythene packet filled with a doughy substance. It looked like a mixture of flour, raisins, strips of dates, and what looked like fine grains of wheat. All Akheel would tell me about it was that, "Good fish like this food". I didn't know if he meant that fish in general liked this good food or it was a particularly good breed of fish that liked this food. To me it looked like a medley of all the unused grocery in his house.

By now we had reached a point where the highway led to a bridge that went over a tiny stream. Just before the bridge Akheel steered the van off the road towards the right and parked it at a vacant spot. This was no parking spot as far as I could tell. He had claimed that land by virtue of regular usage. He got off the vehicle and looked around probably for the cops. I felt like a thief's accomplice as I did my share of the perusal. We then gathered the packet of fish food, the several twigs with lines wound around them, and a couple of disassembled fishing rods. From that spot to the stream was a steep grassy slope. The wind was blowing down the slope and along the stream. I could tell that the wind always blew this way for the grass blades lay somnolent like a dog's fur constantly caressed by its master. And that made the slope slippery. Akheel being the veteran positioned his body sideways and galloped down the slope. For me it was just a fast and furious slide. My tennis shoes slipped the moment they set foot on the grass and did not stop until I landed by the muddy bank. I quickly got up and brushed my embarrassment. Luckily I wasn't carrying the fishing lines or I might have been the first catch of the day.

We sat on the grass while Akheel setup his primitive contraption. He pushed one of the branches that we were carrying half way into the ground. A little more than a couple of feet stood above the soil. Then he tied one end of the fishing line around the branch knotting it several times to ensure it did not break loose under duress. At the other end of the line was a dead weight and a rusted fishing hook which he covered with a lump of the doughy substance. Then with a mighty heave he threw the line so that it landed in the middle of the stream. In minutes he had sprayed out five or six such lines tied to as many branches dug to the ground. Having laid out his usual traps he assembled one of his fishing rods. Then he ambled along the bank of the stream to finally settle near a rock. Having swung the rod to drop the bait in the water he sat with his knees bent near his chest quietly waiting. His instructions to me were simple, "Brother dont pull when fish pull, Let him eat. Only pull when he pullll". So I waited with my eyes on the lines. Every now and then a line became taut, I looked at Akheel. He would raise a hand asking me to wait. This one must have been a seasoned killer, I told myself. The lines rose and fell like guitar strings and like a novice my eyes kept focusing from one to the other till my forehead hurt. The prey kept nibbling as their fate danced to the tune of those strings. And then suddenly, one of the lines went taut and rose all the way to the middle of the stream. Before I could stand on my shimmying legs Akheel was onto the line like a leopard. A struggle between man and fish ensued, during which the line snaked over the water making a hissing sound. He pulled like an expert. As the fish neared the surface of the muddy bank he turned and ran up the slope with the line. I saw what that did. If he had gone closer to the water to catch the fish he would be playing to the prey's advantage. The bank was devoid of grass and muddy and hence slippery. The fish could easily have slithered out of grip and a single mistake in leaving the line might have ended in a futile attempt. Instead he ran uphill, dragging the fish out of the water and away from the slippery bank and on to the grass. The grass blade took away the slime and made it impossible for the fish to escape. It also made for easier gripping. We had got our first catch.

A few hours and a couple of catches later I was still sitting by the branches playing my mental metronome not having contributed in the least bit in this collaborative effort. It was almost time for sun down and a squadron of mosquitoes had become airborne. They droned over our heads and every now and then one of them launched a kamikaze on our flesh. Wearing a pair of shorts had not been a good choice, just like the decision to wear tennis shoes.  Akheel was his usual self lighting a half burnt cigar that filled the air with nauseating smoke. That smoke, along with hunger and the pressure to perform was having an irritable effect. As time passed I began to feel irritated by Akheel's presence. Perhaps I never thought a man from a desert country could beat a boy who grew with the Ganges flowing behind his backyard in a fishing contest. I must have forgotten about the Euphrates, the Tigris. And while I pondered sulkily about the ills in the man one of the lines began to move. This times there was no cadence of rise and fall. Instead it was a monstrous pull that snapped the branch. Had it not been for the Arab's reflex the game would have been already over. But Akheel's bear-like paws had grabbed the branch, and now he was holding the taut line.

The branch-and-line combo was a primitive equipment. Unlike a fishing rod it did not give the liberty to let the line loose to give the prey a lease of comfort and then wheel it back slowly. So Akheel walked all the way to the edge of the water to simulate a lesser tension on the line. After a while he would walk out of the mud. And each time he did he ensured a yard or more got reduced between man and prey. With the tension around and the mosquitoes above I decided to stand up and walk slowly move towards the mud. The tennis shoes were brown by now and the crevices of the sole filled with mud to make it precariously frictionless. We waited as the line drew closer. Then with a sudden splutter a tail rose above the water and then vanished. It was a big fat buffalo fish. It was now panicking as the line drew it towards the shallow end. Akheel whispered to me to be ready. Not knowing what that meant I bent me knees and spread my arms like a goal-keeper. I quickly tore a tuft of grass and rubbed them, for I strongly suspected that a hand-to-hand combat was around the corner.

Soon enough the huge head of the buffalo fish reared out of the water. Akheel reverting to his usual tactic started climbing up the slope. But this was a heavy one even for the Arab. So the piscine giant struggled in the mud throwing splinters of dirt that splattered my face and half-blinded my vision. In a moment of courage I lowered enough to grab its torso. But the slime on its body was too much and it slipped not before leaving my palm bleeding with a jab from its pectorals. The blood somehow made it easier to muster that extra courage and I dug my knees on the mud and almost fell over it. It was now fanning its lengthy dorsal fin that had been somnolent till now. It scratched the side of my face and I could instantly feel the warm gush of blood. Then it suddenly went quiet. Days later when I revisited that encounter I realized what a masterstroke that was. Seeing that the fish had gone still Akheel had left the line and ran down the slope to  help me pin it down. And I seeing Akheel running down must have become a tad complacent. In that millisecond of carelessness our adversary gave the jerk of its life. The jerk blinded me and I instinctively went to clear the mud from my eyes. Akheel was running downhill and in no position to trap the slippery buffalo. He only managed to trip over the line and clumsily fell on me. Entangled in a grotesque mixture of mud slime and grime we both stared cluelessly as our adversary escaped deep into the bed of the stream. It was an hour past sunset when we trudged back to the van.

That night I was the laughing stock among my roommates. Taking my defeat quite sportingly along with the raw scars on my palm and right cheek I was busying myself in the kitchen when the door bell rang. And sure enough there was the Arab, two carps in hand smiling as always. He had come to give my part of the deal. When I reminded him that I had just been a bystander even less useful than the deadweights he just smiled. And of course exhaled the obnoxious fumes from a half-wet cigar. That night we all sat in front of Akheel's apartment eating baked fish from his portable grill sipping cheap beer and taking long drags from his oversized hookah. I smiled as I thought what the folks at the American Center at Kolkata would think if they saw me now. In a few months I left school and I never met Akheel. I think he just kept living life in the true spirit of the Maverick.  

Hot Wheels - A tribute to the world's best car

Photo courtesy: http://jamesdepenningphotography.wordpress.com/

"I do not understand the hyperbole surrounding these fancy German cars", pondered the yellow Ambassador taxi languishing along one of the side streets of Calcutta even as a jet black BMW 5 Series whizzed by splashing sludge over his aging body. The taxi wiped the dirt from his foggy wind shield with rusty creaking wipers. "Age teaches one to pardon insolence as inadvertent follies, and it is no different for cars" he thought. The morning sun had risen long ago but the old decrepit buildings of the city had blocked the rays from hitting the street. In a city where the past is often accused of barricading the present it is only apt that such a sight be seen, thought the 1979 Mark IV. But he loved those buildings; They had aged together. Once in a while he would bring an old tenant to these buildings. After the passenger had got down the taxi would wait a little longer just to chit-chat with his old friends. The buildings spoke less but were good listeners. "After all don't all their walls have ears", he thought and chuckled. But these were aging ears hard on hearing and the taxi had to blow its horn harder to send a message across. As he moved on to the next destination he remembered the times when his old friends were newly built and stood proudly as part of city's grand skyline. "Your day will come too!" he said, almost scornfully as he passed a newly made 40-storey block. Why he felt this disdain for the young chap was unclear, since the building only brought new folks in town and that meant more passengers and better business for him.

For about five decades the Ambassador had been the YBC (Yellow Blood Cell) of the city, acting at times as an AMbulance, a BUS or a matADOR (The highlighted letters displaying the phonetic of the Bengali pronunciation of the word). There were days when one could spot it trying to eke a path through the packed city road. Only the incessant honking and a hand frantically waving a ragged red towel gave away the presence of a medically ill occupant, and hence the urgency of the moment. In a city now ill-famed for its lack of empathy this ingenious signal of emergency had proven its worth. Rickshaws had moved over pavements, small cars had angled and bigger vehicles had made that extra inch available. Even the unconcerned jaywalker had turned to pay heed. Over time people had stopped calling the ambulance and relied more on the services of this good yellow Samaritan in times of crisis.

Talking of crisis, in a city whose dwellers have traditionally paid less respect to time it is only natural that a time-bound crisis has shown up once in a while. Be it catching an express train from the Howrah station or an airlines from the Dum Dum airport the yellow cab has inevitably been the man Friday. Almost every Bengali household has gone through heart-sinking moments when at the eleventh hour someone had realized that the taxis were not plying in the city due to a union strike! What followed ranged from preposterous suggestions to cancel the tickets to taking advantage of a neighbour's brand new Maruti800. This has endorsed the importance of the yellow Pegasus in this ever-procrastinating city.

So it was that on a regular sultry summer afternoon  the 1979 Mark IV was ambling down the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass. A couple of cars had overtaken it and each time a uniformed chauffeur had thrown a condescending look. Just as the third one was about to overtake him, a sudden rush of adrenaline ran down his spine. Instinctively he stepped on the gas all the way till the paddle touched the floor. The old BMC Austin Motors engine revved and let out a war cry. The dark carbon filled fumes clouded the rear of the vehicle. The chassis shook as the suspensions found it hard to keep pace with the sudden power of the engine. The Mark IV had left its mark and was running his final race. The chauffeur in the other car chuckled and stepped on the gas. He was certain that this was going to be an easy race.

In another time, in another place his efforts had been for a more noble cause than just the healing of a wounded ego, thought the aging vehicle. Ten years back on a similar afternoon he had sped down the Barrackpore Trunk Road. It had been a far narrower and treacherous road compared to the EM bypass. The crowd, the commotion, the regular middle class traffic comprising of public buses, auto-rickshaws, cycles, pedestrians and bullock carts made it the perfect road of the masses. And through it the yellow Ambassador had sped; Not to compete in a petty street fight with an upstart automobile, but to save the life of a passenger. An aged lady who lay in the back seat with her head on her bou ma's lap and her cold bony legs on her little grandson's. Her son was sitting in the front passenger's seat puffing away incessantly at one cigarette after another. The Mark IV was much younger then, but he was as much an automobile then as he was now. He had maneuvered through the busy road with all the dexterity that his ilk was known for; At times raising half his body over the pavement when there wasn't enough space on the road. At other times he nudged the reluctant rickshaw ever so slightly to scare the puller to make space. He jumped the red light knowing well that the lady could not wait for it to turn green. The policeman had scorned at him, but he had scorned back. He was a machine all right; But "even machines have a heart", he remember his grandfather once told him. His grandfather, they called him the Morris Oxford Landmaster. The old timers still remembered him as the best machine, and one with a big heart. As they reached the side street that led to the nursing home, Old Calcutta showed its ugly face. Brick walls of century-old buildings rose on either sides of the street restricting its width barely to the breadth of the car's chassis. Even as people moved to make way there simply wasn't enough space. And they were losing the lady in the back. Slowly and surely, she was sliding into a long dreaded slumber. The little boy was not ready to let grandma go. He did not even know what 'letting go' meant.

The Mark IV had seen many deaths. There was a time when he had stood in the taxi booth in front of the Nilratan Sirkar Hospital. He had learnt to tell by looking at the passenger's face when it was time for the short painful trip to the crematorium. Those tears, the wailing, those tortured muffled cries never left his car long after the people had left. So he knew what "letting go" meant. And today he was not going to let the old lady go. The Mark IV switched on its strong halogens as if to warn an invisible adversary and began to move, slowly and surely. The onlookers at the far end of the lane stepped inside their doors and bobbed out their indistinct heads. Almost immediately there was a long incessant screech of  hard metal scraping along the bare porous bricks as powders of cement mixed in yellow car paint kept falling. After a few agonizing minutes the Mark IV came to a halt at the entrance of the nursing home. The stretcher was laid and the lady was briskly taken away even as her daughter-in-law and grandson scrambled to keep pace behind the entourage of nurses. The son got busy in the formalities of paperwork at the reception and in making provisions for his mother's operation. The onlookers who had just witnessed the car bulldozing through their dingy lane came around to take a look at the wound. Someone mentioned a broken side mirror lying in the gutter. Another picked the metal handle of one of the doors that was lying on the street. Sardarji opened the driver's door and stood beside his car, carefully examining the wound like a trainer examining his pet lion. "Oye kuch nahi hota, Yeh to mera sher hai" he bellowed in a voice that made the others cower. The Mark IV stood there, broken, battered, and proud, just like the Sardar who had driven him to his destination. For the rest of the afternoon they both sat under the banyan tree watching people walk in and out of the infirmary. The bonnet remained open supported by a metal rod and a red towel spread over the car's front windshield. Inside, Sardarji was sleeping with his mouth open and a red wet handkerchief spread over his eyes. Like man, like machine.

The boy did not have to let go of his grandmother. Not that time. Two weeks later they went back in the same yellow taxi to their home. As she got down from the car with the help of several pairs of hands she looked at the long paintless scratch on the door. With her frail fingers she touched it and murmured something at the beaming Sardar before being taken away to the comfort of her bedroom. Only the Sardar and the car understood the muffled expression of gratitude. "It was not long before the last of those trips were made, but that was the one where I had changed destiny instead of bowing to it", proudly thought the Mark IV.

Just then the reverie broke and he realized that the EM bypass had taken an acute turn and the black BMW he was racing with was making the larger arch to stabilize itself. The Ambassador lacking the technology of his rival, conjuring all his skills tried to control the swerve, but the few moments that had been lost in the speed transition proved decisive. As the rubber screeched through the shoulder of the road, pebbles sprayed in all directions and the Mark IV was engulfed in a cloud of dust. The sound of metal hitting concrete startled all who were driving within a hunder yards. All they saw was the round rear trunk of a yellow taxi and figured that a poor outdated vehicle must have met its timely demise. The BMW sped away not wanting to be a part of the tragedy.

The dust had settled, but the Mark IV had not got back his vision back. With a cracked windshield, a broken axle, a damaged carburetor and a blood smeared turban resting on its steering wheel he lay there by the highway. The city lights were glowing brighter with every moment inching towards dusk. A couple of fancy German cars raced by as the executives returned to the comfort of their lavish homes. This time the Mark IV bore no malice. He had fought his final battle in this colosseum of a city. Immortality was his. The smoke stopped coming out of the exhaust pipes.



PS: I grew up in Calcutta, and that means I walked in and out of the Ambassador through most of my childhood. The image of the car remained unchanged from the time when I had to be hoisted by a pair of adult hands to the back seat till the time when those adult hands became mine. So when I saw an old battered yellow taxi with paint scraped from the side door from some old skirmish I felt sorry for the old chap. I thought how representative it was to the spirit of a city that eggs on while disregarding the advancements in the world around and the rebuke it faces for being old-school. Those seats torn at places not only reveal the foam and choir beneath but also tell many a tale. They tell of trips when newborns were carried home in these seats; of teerth yatras made by the aged to nearby Tarapeeth, Mayapur and Nabadweep; of weekend family trips to the Botanical Garden , or to the chiria-khana. The car epitomises the city itself. A city that has never promised luxury and comfort, without a little bit of pain.

Of travel and travail

A train journey has always enthralled me with its kaleidoscopic experience. The leisurely moving landscapes, the golden wheat fields interspersed by greener ones; The more hurried string of coconut trees, the motley orchards, the blur of wild shrubs along the railway tracks, the occasional village urchin waving a tattered cloth, the metal rails of the adjacent track, the air garnished by the pungent aroma of diesel, and the distant hoot that heralds the passing of the giant serpent. Together they have left an indelible mark.

I have spent hours sticking my face close to the window grill into the abysmal darkness of the amavasya night or at the haloed aura of a full-moon one. The beauty of the clouds and the sun rays peeping through them (as witnessed from an aircraft window) although spectacular has never been able to replace this experience.

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since I made my last substantial journey in 2005, from Kolkata to Bangalore. The ticket was a paltry Rs 450 then. That it provided a berth in a 3-tier Sleeper Class coach and covered a distance of 2000 kms made the amount seem "paltry". Also, the 50% concession on the ticket price provided those invaluable alms to the hollow pocket of a student returning home for vacation. This pocket-money was invaluable for my sustenance of the journey just like a warm coat would have been to one of Napoleon's soldiers returning from Russia, .

A few things have changed since that time. An addition of Rs 58 to the fare, a couple of bed lamps embedded on the side walls beside each berth, and two 3-pin plug points for the convenience of passengers in the coup. The number of vendors selling puri-sabzi at Bhuvaneshwar station however has dwindled to almost nil. The plastic cups in which pineapple juice used to be sold at the Vijayawada Junction have halved in size, and doubled in price. Also, the juice tastes less of pineapple and more of the ubiquitous "Rail Neer" now. Lastly, the Indian Railway employees have reincarnated in their red black and white checkered uniforms shedding their erstwhile navy blue ones.

Other things have remained gladly the same. The distant hooting of the diesel engine, the breakneck speed and the shaking berths at the advent of the wee hours, the beeline of impatient travelers wishing to get down as the train approaches a station, and scampering to get back inside as it departs from one. The taste of coffee has thankfully remained true to its original self. So have the idli-vada and the dry coconut chutney that so many of my Bengali friends loathed. The latrines have "maintained" their standards and still require the passenger to know the right time during the journey to use them. I have traditionally used them only after the train departed from Vijaywada or Vishakhapatnam, strongly believing that these two are the only stations where the latrines are cleaned and the water tanks refilled.

I was making this trip with my wife. I have narrated many a story about my train journeys to her before, and this was my chance to have her experience the thrills and the perils of undertaking one. Therefore, one must pardon my demeanour at discovering the two pairs of eyes ogling in our direction as if to suggest the screening of a riveting movie.

The middle-aged man and the boy in his early twenties were sitting on the berth facing us. Now, I do not suffer from colour-bias, but the complexion of the two men suggested that they may have taken a fresh dip in a bucket of tar. This made their eyes and teeth seem outstandingly bright. At first, I felt a tad irritated by their constant smile, but soon dismissed it as an aberration caused by the contrast in the colour of the skin and the teeth. The man could be best described as a sooted version of Santosh Dutta (I almost waited with bated breath for him to pounce on a khukri and exclaim eta amaar!). The boy was thinner, more talkative and often used a Bengali dialect that I found difficulty in comprehending. He seemed an impatient sort and liked bossing around the older man. I suppressed a compelling urge to straighten him.

Time was whisking by. My wife and I were busy admiring the beauty of the farmlands as the train rushed through the wheat fields of northern Andhra Pradesh. Not being reared in an agrarian family and harbouring only a minimal knowledge about farming I was finding it difficult to answer my wife's queries about the type of crop, vegetables, reaping seasons et al. The boy heard her, sprang to his feet and with a spark in his eyes started explaining the types of crops to her. Soon we could distinguish the onion fields from the okra, and the tomato plantations from the chili. The man joined in and explained that the haystacks in the center of the fields were residue from machine-threshing of the strands of wheat. He lamented that in southern India they use machines to thresh wheat whereas in Bengal it is still done manually. Their knowledge impressed the ignorant middle-class in us and made them a little more tolerable.

As the train stopped at Vishakhapatnam for the change of engine, a sea of humanity filled the station. Shouts of "anda biryani", and "idli-vada" filled the air that was already saturated by the myriad sounds of children crying, mother's yelling and men bellowing. I joined the crowd and inhaled my share of the ether. My wife never left her seat. She was guarding our belongings like an Emperor penguin guards its chicks during the Antarctic winter. Long ago when we were in college she had once slept in a train and had woken up to find her bag missing. It is another story how she managed to retrieve it (after intense negotiation over phone) from the thief. But since then she has vowed not to abandon her belongings while in transit. As I stood alone looking for a pattern in the random movements of the passenger, out of the crowd came a dark finger and poked straight at my ribs! It was Santosh Dutta (my mind by then had already conferred him the name). I had apparently functioned as a human lighthouse and saved him from being lost in the crowd. On discovering me he had ensured that he would end up in the right coach when the train decided to leave the station.

When a man finds something he fears he may have lost, the release of angst sometimes makes him act funny. Such was the case with my friend. He was offering me tea and biscuit for no apparent reason. When I declined he asked about my whereabouts (in an effort to strike an amiable conversation). Not being a particularly suspicious man I gave him the details. I also told him that in case he wondered why my wife speaks broken Bengali, it is because she is not a Bengali by birth. Then I explained to him what "Konkani" means and where this section of humans dwell, because that is where my wife comes from. Although inquisitive, I found the man rather congenial.

We were back in the train. The night was approaching fast. The dim incandescent lamps illuminated the coup and one could see ones own countenance in the glass window. A few street lamps whisked by suggesting that the train was passing through a semi-urban area. After having a fairly sumptuous meal for dinner (the quality of which I found to have improved), my wife shifted to the middle berth to read something she was carrying for the journey. I was lying supine on the lower berth gazing at the ceiling fan. It said "Himalaya" at its center. I remembered the name. Another of the things that have not changed in Indian Railways. I noticed that the odd couple (Santosh Dutta and his stooge) were preparing to get down. The whites of their eyes were scanning in the dark to ensure that they did not leave any stray luggage behind.

As a passing query I asked my man, kothai jachhen aapnara? Anticipating a conversation he settled cross-legged on his berth and replied, Kaaatpadi Jaanction. The place rang a distant bell in my mind, but I could not comprehend why. Then he landed the blow directly in my solar plexus. It wasn't a physical one, but it hurt more. He said he makes this journey every month, with his stooge, who happens to be his nephew by relation. The reason; The boy suffers from blood cancer and requires blood transfusion every month. Hence, destination Vellore, hence Katpadi junction. He blurted out the reason of his travel in a matter-of-fact way, all the while flashing his teeth as if to make a mockery of any response I could muster. It was 11 pm. And the train would not reach Katpadi till 1 am at night. But, these seasoned pilgrims knew better than to lie down and close their eyes. They kept looking at each other in the dark, as I purged all my predicaments in the fire of their eyes. I recalled all the little worries that I have not been brave enough to bear with a smile. They were still smiling at me, and each time they did so my mind strained hard to maintain composure, to hold back that tear drop from a free fall. I looked out at the darkness. It was my only ally for the moment.

I stayed awake for the next two hours to bid them goodbye. As the train left Katpadi, I could see two shadows outside the window. Santosh Dutta was patiently standing. The young man was animatedly describing which way to go to his uncle. He exuded the same arrogance, the same irritation with the world that i had witnessed when I first say him. But this time, I bore no malice.

The night I dined with them.

I was gormandizing the food on the dinner plate, oblivious of the ladies and the gentleman, patiently awaiting my audience. Most of my life I had taken them for granted; I saw no reason to mend my ways now. Besides, every time they had presented me with their affection,time, and effort, I have reciprocated by being well-mannered, obedient, and patient. So, our scores were even and there was no reason for more bartering, or so I had thought.

We were in a strange room. One could not definitively call it a dining room or a drawing room, or even a bedroom. Also, strange was the assortment of furniture of this room. True, I was sitting at the dining table. But the gentleman before me was sitting on a wooden frame easy-chair that had no symphony with the straight-back in which I sat. One of the ladies, a tiny one, sat at the far corner of a massive king-size bed. She was merrily knitting away from two woolen balls, the colours of which I could not distinguish. The other one, much larger than the little lady sat herself on a decrepit single-bed which could barely sustain her. I wished I could swap the two women to improve the geometric sanity of this room. Then there was a third one who sat far away in the darkest corner. She seemed oblivious of my presence. Even in the dark she was reading something through a thick black frame of spectacles. I had a feeling I had visited her before.

All the light in the room came from a single source. The glowing wick of an over-sized clumsy clay prodip that lay before me on the dining table. It seemed as if it's creator was a kindergarten kid who had been provided ample clay to play with.

A tad irritated as to why I was being subjected to such an interrogative atmosphere, I looked the gentleman in the eye and asked him "Is there something you want to ask me?". The hazel eyes glinted, and I could see the flickering flame of the lamp in them. He got up slowly, as if time had no value to him, walked up to my table, picked up the comb (till then I had no idea that a comb was lying there), and went back to his seat. Then he kept back-brushing his hair till I could see the regimental strands even from where I sat. This surely must be a drill to test my patience. I decided to play ball. Then, almost as I was starting to think that my question had got lost in the conundrum of this room, in came his reply, "Yes, why are you here?". Taken aback by the barefacedness of the question, and the paucity of an apt reply, my mouth stayed open for an inordinate amount of time.

The hilsa on the plate had been very palatable, the taste of it lingered at the tip of my tongue. However, the lips were going dry as my mouth stayed open. "I came to eat", i managed to say eventually. "Well then, eat well, dadubhai, and don't speak while you eat. The food might get stuck in your wind-pipe!". The retort was so definitive that for the next half hour, I kept eating what was on the plate. The luchi alur dom' the machher matha, the gaendal patar bata, et, al. Every time I ate something, one of the ladies would ask me how it was, and if I wanted more. Even if I did, I did not want to say so. I had a feeling this wasn't a "free lunch". Nothing in this world comes for free. Of that I was sure.

By now, my pupils had got attuned to the dancing flame, and could see things a little clearer. The little lady was smiling at me from the corner of the gargantuan bed. I wondered why she needed such a big bed. I was preparing myself to ask the next intelligent question that could avoid a riposte like the last one. The gentleman interrupted me, "It is time for me to go to bed", he said. Then got up from his easy-chair and walked silently to the massive bed. The little lady muttered something under her breadth that vaguely sounded like she disapproved of his abrupt disengagement from the ensuing conversation. Oblivious of the disapproval, the gentleman, now brought out an over-sized mosquito net out of nowhere, and fastidiously started hanging it around the bed. In no time, the netted cocoon was made ready. He crept in it, making sure to leave any lingering mosquito out of his den. Then he went to sleep, with the air of a man in complete authority even in slumber.

Strangely, the little lady was not complaining anymore. She was knitting away with the dexterity of a weaver bird. From where I sat, it looked like a red sweater with a yellow teddy bear on it. She held it up for me to see and asked,"How do you like it? It is for you !". The red sweater she held out at me would have been perfect for a three year old child. But at 29, I thought I was a little overgrown for it. I said, with an air of euphemistic pity that the youth reserves for the elderly, "It is very beautiful, didima; But, I think it is a little small for my size". The lady seemed hurt. She looked away and muttered, "But to me you will always remain a three year old toddling through the room".

Like a blinkered horse traversing a monotonous pathway, oblivious of the scenery around, the diurnal chores obfuscate the memories that accompany us all through life. They only rear in surrealistic moments like these; and when they do, they leave a gaping hole that I now felt inside me. I carefully took the sweater from her tender palms and held onto it.

I looked at the lady sitting in the small decrepit single-bed, anticipating her to be the next to say something. Instead, she just smiled at me through those benign eyes that were embedded between the chubby cheeks and a rotund forehead. A smile that demanded no reciprocation, attention, or conversation. A smile that emanated pure happiness. I remembered running through the corridor and up the steep stairs as a child to see that smile on mashidida's face. It was a distant moment that came before me, as real as the smile now was. My mouth opened to say something to her, but the moment had already passed and the words remained entrapped in the quagmire of my thoughts. The calmness in her face, and the constant heart-beat in my ear played together like a storm and it's eye. With bated breath I let the moment pass.

The elderly lady in the darkest corner of the room looked up from her newspaper. She voiced myriad concerns under a single breath. Some regarding my lack of diet, my slender physique, my thinning hairline et. al. My assurance did little to appease her that I was being well looked after. Walking upto her and touched her feet as has been customary from the old days i requested her permission to depart. She poked those slender finger through my thinning hair and in a voice strangely baritone for a woman she said "boro hao". Strange as the blessing may seem to an already 29 year old lad, I did not dispute the veracity of it. Today, I had learnt to remain silent and refrain from trying to measure the depths of unfathomable affection.

Eventually, i rose to beg my leave of the caucus. I picked up the comb that lay on the table. The red sweater wrapped tight around my arm. The smile from the adorable lady (still sitting cross-legged on her single-bed) to fill the gaping hole in me, and the blessing of "boro hao" from the one in the dark.

I turned around and kept walking as the morning sun broke through the blinds.

The Rendezvous

As the river beneath meanders through the labyrinth of hillocks, my mind dodges through the pragmatics of life, trying to find the poetry of the past. For a person who has suffered from chronic reveries, an altitude of 30,000 feet, provides an opportune ambiance for the mind to play. The lingering oblivion never fails to raise the innumerable whats, whys, and whens that the earth fails to evince. As i fly over the dry mid-west of the North American sub-continent, memories rush by me like stray bullets. Some, like flies that do not stick long enough in ones clasped hands. Arduously, I try to ensnare a few of them.

A blur of lean teenage faces from a bygone era float before my eyes. The uncertain mustaches, the unkempt hair, the sporadic beards. The boisterous croaks proclaiming an unknown land to be their own. Those unselfish hours of doing nothing, but plotting against the harmless. Those innumerable bus trips to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd stop (... and then there were none!). Those unending discussions about future (when none knew what it meant). The tea sessions that consumed more time than intended, and yielded nothing but the need for more such sessions. The ice-cream parlours, where ice-creams were cheap, and time, cheaper. The plethora of other eat-outs (Rajvans, Navaratna, Mathura, et.al,), where the gang could meet, and would not leave until the shutters came down. The projector stops and all is dark again, except for the constant hum of the Airbus.

Ten years ago, we were an unsophisticated bunch. Stealing mangoes, chasing thieves at midnight, provoking local drunkards to fights, climbing hill-tops infested by thieves, flooding hallways with buckets of water, drinking the worst of concoctions, smoking the best of stolen brands, and sending roommates to tuition classes at 2am in the night. Somewhere down the line, that ride in a turbulent whirlpool was bartered for a hammock by the lake. Today, i desired to fall off the hammock to meet that bunch of ruffians.

The memories do not flow like a cascade. They hit you in unplanned sporadic downpours. As I try to reconstruct my thoughts, a cacophony of feminine laughter interrupts me. It reminds me of a ring of boys surrounding two(or were there three ?) girls, who typically kept sending extended bouts of synchronous laugh-waves that would echo in every corner of the 50 acre campus. The bus stand, the library, the drawing hall, the AD (administrative) block, they all fell victim to the symphony of the sirens. In a place where an expression of emotion to the slightest excess actuated a reprimand from an authority (typically a couple of bike riding "brothers" who were the self proclaimed guardians of all feminine objects spotted in the campus), I think that laughter kept the group alive. Not to mention the fact that the guys were always apprehensive to crack a joke in the group for fear of igniting the laughter fit in these women. Ten years on, Seema and Divya still do the same when they meet. I wish for sanity's sake that they would stop, but for old time's sake, i wish they didn't.

The flight time is 8 hours. We have reached about mid-way. I look down at the barren fields of the mid-west, and the narrow rivulets cutting through them. The view is vastly different from the high-rise skyline of the east-coast. I wake up Divya to have her witness the change in the topography. Meanwhile, I try to stretch my legs and get some sleep. But there isn't enough space for them. So i slide them under the front seat. Some things don't change. I have never managed to fit my legs appropriately. In the hostel, I would slide them between the rods at the foot end of my bed frame to be able to sleep straight. For some though, the case of sleepless nights was less a matter of long legs and more a matter of wicked roommates. Rishikesh Kumar (Thakur) was that tormented soul; Vishal Mishra , Animesh Kumar and I being the infamous roommates.

That reminds me of an incident that occurred in 2002, when a young and dynamic Thakur decided to share room 219 with the incessantly active and cynosure-of-all-eyes Vishal Mishra, the perpetually inquisitive and eternally cribbing Animesh Kumar, and the somnolent plotter Saptarshi Moitra. Thakur had come to Shimoga from the hinterlands of Bihar. An extremely hard working, sincere, ambitious individual with a dream to learn from his surroundings. Nobody had warned the village lad that there would be little to learn from a wily UP-wallah, or a thakur-specific-news-seeking Jharkhandi, and never from a steeped-in-sarcasm Bengali.

This was our third semester at Shimoga, and our first one as roommates. Being CSE students, all three of my roommates were required to prepare a project report on any topic of their interest. I think it was a project to teach students to make future projects. I remember Ani preparing a report on aliens, specifically about the Roswell incident. I only remember it because one could often find him running around in excitement after reading something about the Roswell incident. Thakur would look up from his books, irritated by the commotion around. His smile indicating that such excitement could only be tolerated in case of a real alien landing, and even then, only marginally. Mishra had probably already downloaded a report from Kishee's internet cafe (I am making this educated guess just for the purpose of this article). In short, Mishra and Ani were not a competitive threat to Thakur's standing in the CSE Dept. Thakur had other monsters to fight in the battle outside our room.

On an ominous morning, Thakur had gone for the unlimited-idli-limited-vada breakfast at the mess. The other three being late risers often missed the breakfast. Thakur had left behind his prized possession, the evaluated project report in his cupboard. The newspaper for the day had arrived, and I, barely out of my late night slumber was scanning through its pages. My eyes fell upon an article which had something to do with a very reputed Indian professor at an American university being twice denied the Nobel Prize despite some extraordinarily pioneering work. Two things in that article struck my till-then-dormant brain. The name of the professor, and his photograph. Prof. Thakur (no offense to the great man) was looking out at me through a wave of dishevelled hair and an inordinately large pair of glasses. He looked angry and frustrated, just as the article stated, and more importantly, just as I wanted him to be!

Note: Today while I was penning this incident from my memory, i had a curious urge to look for that picture of Prof. Thakur. Long live the electronic age. I believe the picture below is the exact one that I had seen 9 years ago in the newspaper. Taking a look at it may improve the reader's understanding of the behaviour of the four actors in this ongoing play.



My first instinct was to share it with Ani and Mishra. Both broke into fits of laughter that was hard to control. I pitched in with the idea that this could be a perfect photo to be pasted on Thakur's project report. Now, I have been blamed time and again for being the "planner", and not the "enforcer". As a great man ones said, "The world is a stage, where every man must play his part". So, planner I was, and I played my part.

Ani was so excited by the idea of Prof. Thakur's photo on Thakur's report that he kept jumping around the room in his sky blue 3-quarter shorts. I think it was he who managed to scrounge a pair of scissors and some Feviquick. Vishal's bed was next to mine and our tables were attached to each other. Next to his bed was Thakur's cupboard. He opened the cupboard and brought out the report that Thakur so cherished. He muttered something that sounded like he predicted that this would blow the lid off of Thakur's patience. When you are 20, the fear of the unknown has a narcotic effect. We decided to go for it. Like three expert surgeons doing an open-heart surgery on a hapless patient, we carefully cut out Prof.Thakur from the newspaper and safely glued him to the cover of Thakur's report. Vishal kept the report back in the cupboard where it belonged. All done, we waited.

As a child I have always been very silent and patient. They both come naturally to me. I decided that all that was to be done now was to wait. The bug in Ani's pant apparently did not think so. He had to spread the news outside the room. Vishal followed. I vaguely remember warning Vishal not to leave the room. Once they went out of the room, I was convinced of the impending disaster. I went to sleep. like a dead fish.

I could hear roars of laughter from the next room. Sagar (another of us Thakur-poking demons) was laughing himself insane. So was Pandu. Only Pandu was quieter. I could not hear what he was saying. KK, Deepak, they were all there. Ani's voice was the clearest. He was incessantly explaining to them what we just did. Vishal was hovering in the corridor that connected our rooms. I presume he wanted to keep an eye on the events transpiring in both rooms, as well as keeping an eye on the far end of the corridor, to be able to warn Ani to shut his mouth at the slightest appearance of Thakur.

Sure enough, in a matter of minutes I heard Vishal's voice resounding through the corridor.. " Arre Thakur a gya hai bhai, Thakur a gya..". I imagined a smiling Thakur walking through the corridor, unaware of the crisis ahead. Assuming that something spicy was being discussed, and having an hour after breakfast dedicated to leisure, Thakur walked into room 220 for some gossip. It wasnt long before one topic moved to the other, and then suddenly i heard Pandu's voice mentioning something about project reports by CSE students. Now, why on earth would a Mechanical Engg. student be interested in a CSE project report? And then it was Sagar's turn. He said something like " Arre Thakur tera project report dikha na ?" I knew instantly that it was time to be a dead dead fish. Unaware of the plot, Thakur came hopping into our room, opened the cupboard, took out the report and hopped his way out to 220. I stayed still, waiting for Vesuvius to erupt.

What followed, was a blur. First there was laughter, more laughter. Then the laughter stopped. Then I felt someone stalk into our room, open the cupboard, shut it with a bang ! I knew Thakur was back in the room, humiliated and angry. Then i heard some quiet and slow foot-steps. I assumed it was Ani, moving around uneasily near the entrance of our room. Vishal was probably still standing outside, by now realizing well that it wasn't safe inside. I had a tremendous urge to see Thakur's red face and Ani' blue. But I was sure to burst into laughter if i opened my eyes. So i played dead. Ani muttered something that vaguely sounded like an apology. That was the spark that ignited Thakur. The molten lava came running down on us, devouring everyone in its path.

First in line were Ani and Vishal. 9 years on, I have forgotten the words that came out of Thakur's mouth. These were not expletives. They were painfully funny on one hand and painfully sad on the other. He said that perhaps we were people from "big cities" and from elevated societies where it was OK to ridicule someone's hard work; But, for him, a lad from the "gaon", this project report was a prize he wanted to give to his parents, a souvenir, a badge of accomplishment... in short it meant the world to him. Now, none of us had foreseen this coming. Most of us did not even think that the report was worth preserving. That it meant so much to Thakur took us by surprise. Ani, in his moment of confusion kept apologizing to Thakur, and let out a stifled giggle every now and then. This would stoke Thakur's anger even more and he would bring down his full oratory skills on Ani. Vishal was trying to calm Thakur with his casual "arre yaar yeh to bas mazaak thha.." statements. Suddenly, Ani realized that I was lying down on my bed, sleeping. He got on top of me, and kept screaming in his typically low pitched tone " Arre yeh sab Sapto ka plan thha.. useene yeh sab kia.. abhi kameena so rha hai !! ..". This somehow angered Thakur even more and he rushed out of the room. I got up from my longer-than-planned slumber and through expletives from Ani and Vishal, went to wash my face. It had been a nightmare indeed.

I found Thakur at the stairs. I do not remember what i said. I think together we succeeded in calming Thakur down. Ani however spent the next nine years trying to convince Thakur that it was I who had planned the whole thing. Even if that is true, without the perfect execution by Vishal Mishra and Animesh Kumar, the plan would have been doomed.


An era has passed since that day. I do not know if today's student find such incidents funny, or just silly. For us these provided the grist for friendship.

Today, Vishal still has that distinct crackle in his voice. He does not wear those spotted shorts any more. Niether does he stand on the bed with his legs apart before giving an important speech. But he still exudes the excitement that has always shamed me and made me feel unprepared for any occasion. I remembered the numerous parties where I have regularly failed to evince the excitement that he brings so naturally. The guy has the same propensity as before to bring the group together. I feel much of what is Sphinx today is because of what Vishal was in 2001. Without him we would have been islands of human beings floating all over the world, much like the rest.

Thakur remains the eternal source of entertainment. When we met, he did not fail us a bit. Through his discussions (ranging from pseudo-serious to serious topics), expressions, and actions, he reminded me of the good old Thakur. I therefore obliged him by being the good old me. Our pranks on him mainly ranged from mental torture to extreme mental torture that started at 12 in the night and went until 4 in the morning (you know, the usual Thakur-Sleeping-Time). All the while Thakur smiled and feigned as if he was sleeping, only to be given away by his expressions and body movements. Also Thakur does not get angry as quickly as he used to (or maybe i just didn't have enough time to test that.... maybe, Sagar's or Atul's presence could have had a catalytic effect).

Ani remains the same as he was in college. He drinks Bloody Mary, and vouches for its taste and forces others to drink the obnoxious concoction... he then lies flat on his face in 20 minutes and doses off while others stay awake obeying his initial plan of a night-out. Why do I see surprised faces ? We all knew Ani drinks, dint we? Oh, if you are surprised why he disliked drinking when you drunkards were lying around drunk in the hostel aisles, here is why, "You guys weren't sophisticated .. you guys used to drink like animals!" .. and that my friends is straight from the horse's mouth! That apart, the guy is still the same. A lot of information about and a lot of urge to do a lot of things. Still asks plenty of questions. Never got a straight answer from me throughout the trip, however serious the mode of questioning was. Sometimes I really feel bad at not giving him a straight answer... but, not really. I actually enjoy it !

As for me, i am still the sarcastic dog, who deep inside, yearns to meet his old friends. I realized while writing today that fond memories fade faster if not revisited. I suggest wherever you guys are, visit each other as often as you can and rehearse the old times. An oasis in the desert survives because it has the mirages to give company. However untrue the mirages be, they keep the oasis alive.