SMOKE IN THE MOUNTAINS

Today I  woke up and read about a fire in Andheri (West), Mumbai. It had broken out in the house of my friend - an affable woman with twinkling eyes and crackling wit  whose only gnawing anguish in life remains  Brazil's 7-1 humiliation. She proudly talked about her olfactory prowess which I believe could have been  acquired by spending quality time with her pets about whom she is very passionate . She wrote  how she had sniffed smoke bellowing out of her sofa and  further that, despite it being three in the morning, she was able to douse the flame single handedly.

Much as I was relieved to learn that all were safe, I did get terribly anxious. Okay, it is one thing to burn your Science and Maths books after the Board exams  or be a victim of the  the odd short circuit. But accidentally or negligently stubbing your cigarette on your sofa after a drink too many as happened in my friends's house is a bit galling - and I know no amount of  harangue at her husband or huddle with her friends  to complain will change such people. But then I softened up. Sanjoy da is great chap, and in marrying my friend he has been blessed with enough luck to tide him over these tricky  situations he puts himself in.

The post reminded of  another incident which happened about three decades ago. My cousin, a chain smoker and newly wedded, had, in a surge of passion that is a marker of early married days,  left a burning cigarette on a bed which he had been sharing only since his marriage a week ago. It is not that the coitus was interrupted, because the cigarette is a quiet customer, not a violent flame thrower. It burns slowly, enjoying the  titillating softness and warmth of the foam of the mattress.  But it is not my intention to tell you a story about my cousin's  early days of marriage . I don't want to even talk about  the  wisp of smoke or  crackling and flaming sticks  in the fireplace or even the smouldering embers in  the morning which Indian filmmakers, out of censorial diktat,  use to  symbolise  various stages of  lovemaking - when they are fed up with inflicting  frames of flowers in sway and tangle on a sublimely overeager and salivating audience!

No, I want  to narrate my own story about triggering smoke when I was neither drunk nor newly married. It happened in Musoorie  in 1988 - but before that I must digress because it relates to my shoes. I had purchased a pair of shoes, rather shoe uppers, sometime in 1984. The SnapDeal was made in Chor Bazar, adjacent to Lal Qila in Delhi - a bazaar which streaked like a colourful ribbon  on the footpath for over a kilometre , starting from across  Vijay Ghat and stretching upto almost across  Rajghat. One could buy a variety of things - empty  champagne bottles,  new  and used carpentry and electrical tools and goods, new and old clothes, cassettes, pirated books, old books, rugs, hooks and hangars and clotheslines, cots , a huge variety of plastic goods, shoes and furniture and what not. During the winter months, one would go once in a while and be lucky with the odd bargain. 

It was in one of those visits that I had picked a  pair of snazzy black uppers, shaped almost like Bata's Mocassino , a popular brand in the early 1980s.  It appealed to my eye and feel and was gentle on my wallet - I  paid  Rs. 35/- for it. Later on, I gave it at one of Bata's repair shops in Patna for  fixing the soles. The shoes came out nice and comfortable- and were  a favourite. I called them Red Fort shoes. I am sure the pair of shoe uppers I had purchased  must have been stolen because shoes are normally not retailed without soles- but this was Dilli . Here fellows have earned the reputation for selling Taj Mahal and their ranks had been augmented by a large number of migrants from my state Bihar - the more enterprising amongst  whom had cut their teeth by selling even the Platform No. 1 of Patna Railway Station.  Besides, the Sunday Chor Bazar had a reputation to uphold. 

Anyway, let us  come back to the story I wanted to tell you.Mussoorie was the first stop from where I began my career . We assembled for close to 4 months in this hill station for a Foundation Course or FC at Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration. In shoemaking terms, you could say the FC was an intermediate term between curing and tanning- though not so malodorous. The only unpleasant task was waking up early and going out for a jog - otherwise, classes,  guest lectures, village visits, treks and a host of other extra curricular activities I  found entertaining and stimulating. So what if we could not reach our destination of Khat Ling glacier because of a land slide?  So what if our play Chandragupta Maurya ended in a disaster? 

It was  the month  of  December.  The FC  was tapering towards its end. Winter had set in. The air was getting cooler and days shorter.The pine trees  smelt different.The 3 p.m  tutorial classes had become a tad tough to attend but this story is about one such class. I don't remember what was the subject.I am not sure whether Srikant or Pankaj or Bandula were  with me or not that day in the class- my memory fades into  an embarrassing opacity. But  I do remember  it was being taken by Rajiv Takroo, a 1979 batch Gujrat cadre IAS officer who had joined us mid term as a Deputy Director. Let us call  him DD to give relief to my aching fingers on the keyboard. One of  the younger members of the  faculty , he was fit as a fiddle, a lover of squash and easy to mix with . Probably 10 to 12 of us were there in that room  that afternoon and DD was sitting at his desk.  It was  very cold and a two rod heater was placed in between his desk and the front  row where  I sat. It was within the touching distance of my feet which had become numb as the Red Fort was an ordinary moccasin, not the warm knee length  deerskin boots  which Red Indians  wore.

Slowly, as the class progressed, I started to prod the heater with my Red Forts. The extra warmth felt nice. Now nice things one doesn't let go away easily. So from a prod, I  started to place it for a few moments at a time, then more than a few  moments at a time and feeling the much better , and with the genial electric rods  not imparting any shock, I  somehow 'stepped on the gas'  as it were and let my feet stay on the heater. The warmth was radiating  and I was transposed into a fairly blissful state, a kiss of of sweet languor, a peck  of sedating drowsiness when I was disturbed by a sudden silence from DD. I looked up and saw him arching his eyebrows in an inquiring manner. I first turned around to see whether anyone had fallen asleep which could have disturbed him. Finding none I turned back and noticed that he was now sniffing in a fairly alarmed and inelegant way under and around himself. I also craned my neck  and joined in a sympathetic sniff rather dutifully.

" What's burning?" he said. 

I smelt something mildly acrid and spotted  a wisp of smoke swirling up  in the area between our tables but could not zero in on the exact source. 

I replied , ' Beats me, but there is no fire, so from where's  the smoke coming out?" 

" Vivek get up I say, " he kind of boomed  with a look of amazement and tone of urgency.

I got up, a bit unsure and peered at  where the DD was staring.  " Holy smoke" I exhaled. It was at my Right Red Fort which had actually caught fire, smouldering if not exactly swishing tongues of flame, but  definitely on fire- announcing  itself with a lot of smokey fanfare. Surprisingly, my feet were absolutely untouched, unharmed, unsinged - the sole, heel and the plantar fascia.

The class thanked  me because on that note it broke up fifteen minutes early- even the best of the faculty cannot collect back the horses and herd them into the stable so quickly after a fire alarm. None offered sympathy as most good friends would in moments like these. The  DD  nicknamed me Smokin' Joe. I lost my shoe but saved my leg and everyone cheered me -as I walked out with the  Red Forts in my hand on the heartless, cold cemented pathway to 14 Mahanadi.

PUJA, POKER AND PATAKA- THE GANGTOK HUDDLE AND DIWALI DHAMAKA

Diwali is a festival  which holds a special place in the bouquet of my childhood memories. It was probably the only festival which our father helped us to organise  - though with three young brats  he did not have much role to play after a few years. No other festival would bring out the child in him as much as  the Festival of Lights . The few times he went to market other than the Sunday mutton purchases at Manzur Miyan's shop near the Dhanbad Police Lines or the occasional visits to Famous/Perfection Tailors at Bank More were to buy the Deewali crackers.  He ensured the diyas were soaked in water and the anaars or tubris, chatayees, dhania patakas, chocolate bombs, snakes, chakrees and rockets were dried in the sun . He  taught us how to roll the wicks and place them in the diyas , how much oil to pour and  the space  to keep between them. During the years we were very small, Papa would fire  the rockets from beer bottles. After starting the proceedings , he would leave for  the teen patti house of the evening in the colony.

Since we did not have a sister,  the gharonda , or the small house of clay  seen in most Bihari houses during Diwali in which Ganesha and Laxmi are worshipped, was not made in our home . It was just as good since  it cancelled out the longish puja and  girlish giggles which could delay the more important business of bursting crackers. An  excitement to compete with lighting  lamps and bursting crackers was the set of new clothes we got every Diwali. I vividly remember that the first pair of new trousers I wore was bought during Diwali - how I had waited for Papa to reach Dhanbad from Calcutta by Coalfield Express. It was also an occasion to indulge in unrestrained gluttony  which would set  off loud tremors, starting with burps but not ending at them, of varying intensity in and around the alimentary canal well into the following day. 

In the Coal Board Colony I grew up as well as in the CPWD Colony which abutted it, the Bengalis, ever different from us, celebrated the Kali Puja instead of Diwali,  like  the Holi which was Dol to them,  on a different day. A statue, smaller than the the resplendent Durga pantheon, was placed in the Community Hall of the CPWD colony. It did not have the gaiety of the Sharadotsav and I hardly visited it. Kali was a formidable goddess with malevolent bearing and trappings. I was afraid of her in much the way kids are scared  of such frightening women like nasty lady school teachers or their buaas ( father's sisters) whom,  more often than they , their mothers could in morbid fear  of.

So when I joined the police force and came to West Bengal, it was the Kali Puja , registered  on the margins of my childhood , which came to be the dominant  strand in the mosaic of Deewali celebrations.  Kali Puja was a huge challenge to police administration. It was a time when forcible collection of chanda  or subscription would make life hell for people- definitely for outsiders passing through and quite often  for locals as well. The thana level police was quite feeble in its response, as it was in most cases of infractions, and would jump to action only when an  important  person came to grief. In my days as an SDPO, the District Magistrate of Midnapore was held up on NH-6 at Panskura. 

The menace was  not just restricted to forcible collection of subscription.  Bengalis tend to consume liquor in frightful quantities during Kali Puja and  overcome the small disadvantage of a  musical heritage of sad and sedate  songs  by blasting Hindi and Punjabi songs to accompany long sessions of frenzied dancing. Unlike other occasions when they argue passionately but fight pathetically,  the fellows become quite rumbustious and aggressive during Kali Puja. Fisticuffs, the occasional knife slash and the Asterixesque  free -for -all are reported from  many  immersion processions and gambling dens.

You could all be wondering why the law enforcers don't do something to curb this nuisance. But why should they when everyone wants to be left alone? In a hugely non- compliant society where jay walkers and fiery orators  rule the roost on the roads, where university students  do not want the police to be seen on campus  because it comes in way of a polite tete a tete with a Vice Chancellor at midnight, the police might as well enjoy their own puja.  Besides, they are a tired lot after a week of continuous duty during the Durga Puja. So but for a select few pandals where people throng to , especially in Barasat, and some other places in and around Calcutta, the police celebrate their own Kali Puja.

There are over 400 police stations in West Bengal, all of them have a Kali Mandir in the thana premises, and all celebrate the Kali Puja. Ever short of governmental budgetary support , the thanas raise  funds during Kali Puja for the  few essential jobs like  touch of paint,  floor repair, a TV for the constables'  barracks and also a  bit of social work, too- CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility for the updated. Unfortunately, most ungrateful people would say that these are occasions for  the police to collect an  annual nazrana  from local traders and businessmen. I don't blame the cynics, it is part of a mindset  to  expect the world  from the police but care not a damn about their welfare. For all those critics , I relate a true story even though I care two hoots about them.

Okay, this is a story set in Jharkhand but it could very well have been of a  police station in Bengal. It is  a tale set in 1960s but it can be spot on in the present times as well. It was narrated to a huddle of officers by  a retired colleague, after much mirth and merriment, on the sides of the Indian Police Congress on a cold night at  Mayfair, Gangtok. Let us call him  'Senior Pro'  as a mark of respect for his age and wisdom,  for the love of my favourite game and as an  acknowledgment of the genius of PG Wodehouse -  though not necessarily in that order. The Senior Pro hailed from a long lineage of Kannauj Brahmins whose services  had been requisitioned a few centuries ago by a princely family in Odisha from where a branch had settled somewhere around Ranchi. His  father was  a pious man of great local repute who also ran a school. The tale he told was about the  time he had just returned from his district training in Uttar Pradesh after finishing his basic training at Mount Abu.

On his arrival in the  village , the Senior Pro heard that the local thanedar  or police station in charge had organised community  card gambling sessions  ( juaa) in the thana premises. This was like a slap in the eye, as the Senior Pro  quite adored the thanedar whom he called Baleshar Chacha. The thanedar also harboured an avuncular affection for Senior Pro whom he  called Bauaa. 

"What is this I have heard, Baleshar Chacha? You organised juaa   in the thana?" 

" Bauaa Sahib, please listen to me, " the thanedar started. 

The Senior Pro remained unmoved , not mollified by the  Sahib which had been suffixed to the affectionate Bauaa. The thanedar  went on to explain that on joining the police station he had made a detailed study of  crime. He had found that that in various parts of the hamlet where the thana was located,  a large number of teen patti  or card gambling addas sprang up during the week prior to Diwali. These addas would become theatres of public nuisance, robbery and stabbing. So he ordered  that all teen patti  addaas be shifted to the thana premises where cards would be played for a nominal fee of one rupee per  board to the thana.

"Bauaa Sahib, aap ko hum kya batayein, ek chakku nahin chala, koi maar peet nahin, koi ho halla nahin." 

" Even SP sahib was so pleased," he added.

" But I am told that that the thana made a lot of money from this," Baua Saheb prodded indignantly, these were early days in service and anything out of the rule book was not quite cricket.

" Bauaa Sahib, please believe me, I have not pocketed a single anna to profit me, " he continued.

" We earned about ek hazaar rupaiyya.  For Rs. 200/- I brought a few razais for the constables in the barracks who earlier used to shiver in the cold winters of Simdega. For about five hundred I repaired that khaprail roof of that barrack," he pointed towards a a large hut  with a red tiled roof.

"Aur agar gustakhi maaf ho then should I tell  to whom I gave the remaining three hundred, Bauaa sahib ?" saying this  he caught the hand of the young IPS officer.

" Boliye Baleshar Chacha," the Senior Pro relented, rather gingerly.

" That money I gave  to  your Babuji," 

The Gangtok Huddle spat out  a mouthful of stunned surprise . Out of respectful embarrassment,  its members  avoided eye contact with the bulging  eyes of Senior Pro. Each member gulped deeply  from the glass and sucked hard at the cigarette  to steady himself. 

Such doubts about his father's integrity had to be removed immediately. So the narration continued.

"Babuji ko paisa diye aap?" Bauaa Saheb ejaculated, his voice betraying incredulous agony, not anger. 

"School ka library ke liye, but please don't tell him that it was from the juaa money," he said with folded hands. 

Senior Pro triumphantly threw the thanedar's reply  at the Gangtok Huddle . The Huddle exchanged looks amongst itself, conceded that the thanedar had a point, and in unanimity shouted at the the SSP of Gangtok to play the Beedi Jalai Le. Such occasions of acuity and wisdom had to be celebrated. 

And it was done with great energy and  fervour. The Senior Pro capered with both the index fingers even as his muffler went flying and the Kashmiri topee almost flew off the perch. Some of the Huddle did a jig with hands on their  hips, a few gyrated like  cobras in heat, some copied the fellows gyrating like cobras in heat to debut as pole dancers .The rest wolf whistled.

MISSING PERSON SQUAD

I have led a fairly  unremarkable life so far. I was never hyperactively  frisky to go missing from fairs or houses  nor courageous enough to leave either my parents or spouse. But I have had a few brushes with the pandemonium that sets in when children go missing.Two of those  involved my youngest brother Bunty, the third  Tanuj, my son.The durations were  shorter -  not for as long as three hours, the period for which siblings  go missing in Hindi cinemas before the reunion which is  usually facilitated  by  either a tattoo or a scar or birthmark  or even an old housemaid's story of a  Macbethian  night of thunder, lightning  and rain. 

Even though those three incidents  had  caused much anxiety for sometime , my abiding memory has been  the spousal tumults they  had triggered.  A celebrated columnist with the Jordan Times had once lamented that whenever offsprings commit a mistake (like they are deemed to have  when they go missing), the mother is held responsible whereas sparks of brilliance in children are arrogated to  the genes they inherit from the male parent . With her characteristic perspicacity, she had proceeded to pepper her article with types of women's reactions which range from Silent Treatment to the more robust Municipality Water Tap aggression .

It was in 1969. Not finding his mother in our ancestral home 'Savitri Sadan' in Patna, Bunty, a confident boy of a little over four, asked a cousin about her whereabouts. 

"She has gone to Chachi's house," the cousin told him, disastrously forgetting to prefix  Chachi with a name.

Now there would not have been less than five Category I chachis and over a score of Category II chachis in the Sahay extended family in Patna those days. But Bunty, with his linear reasoning and quick thinking,  never for a moment  thought it could mean anyone other than Sarla Chachi.  He stepped out, climbed the gate, opened the hatch bolt, swung himself out on the gate in a quarter circle and jumped down to start a journey  of over a mile of busy road from Kadamkuan to Fraser Road Chowraha where Sarla Chachi's house was located.

After a little while,  my mother returned from the house of another Chachi  which was  just two houses away.  And then began the search. Initially it was in hushed tones, then a bit louder, and when it reached the ears of  Dada, my  paternal grandfather,  it was laden with anxiety and despair. Dada was a jolly man, fond of food and beverages, his parties were a rage in the small town of Patna. But he would be seized with  bouts of neurotic anxiety when someone  fell unwell in his huge joint family, or in situations like this. Shit hit the fan when he heard that his youngest grandchild,  the lad barely out of his days of a whistle-prod to piddle, had gone missing.

Those were the  days when fathers-in law  did not mince words while scolding  their daughters- in -law. My Dada tore into my mother for being a 'careless girl' . He also shouted that the boy was an idiot, just like his father. The servants  fled away, not wanting be within  his eyesight  or  earshot .  Of course frantic searches  were launched and a number of enquiries made to other relatives from 22523, the number of our  telephone which lay in a wooden cradle.But it was not a search that located Bunty. Tara, the daughter of the maid Jamuniawali, had gone out on a different errand when she spotted  the imp trudging alone towards his destination near the local petrol pump. She brought him back to the house . 

Bunty  returned to see quite a few of us standing in the front with anxious looks. He ran towards my mother in excitement but my grandfather cut him short. Dada was so incensed that he, otherwise an affable and affectionate old man who never said anything harsher than 'Ullu kahin ka" to his grandchildren , ordered the poor boy to be tied to a black pillar in the verandah. Bunty was more puzzled than terrified. My mother wept quietly, not having the guts to question, forget roll back, Dada's  diktat. This went on for over twenty  minutes when my grandmother returned from Charkha Samiti. She saw the tamasha, rained down  rebukes at my grandfather, untied the boy, and rewarded the servant girl with a princely chavvani  she took out from the knot of her white khadi sari.

" Lemonchoos  kha liha, " she purred and patted.

 Dada retreated with a whimper in the face of the Matriarch's flared nostrils and glaring eyeballs.

Much later I asked Mummy  the reasons for Dada's excessive  anger. She related a story told to her by her nanads . About thirty years ago, probably five years after the Bhookamp or the Great Bihar Earthquake, my Papa ,  then a lad of hardly three  whose speech  had not even been formed fully, silently slipped away to his mausi's  place in Jahaji Kothi . He had mistakenly  thought that she had stolen his Mai's  sari. During his unexplained  absence for  close to an hour, Dada had thrown a fit and had desperately ordered for a search to be caused  in the well in our courtyard.  When Papa  returned with a servant of his mausi  in toe and a  sari, he was soundly slapped till my Dadi threw herself in between. Age was to be respected only for the elders those days , none was too small  to be thrashed - no exception was made for Binoo. 

After 1969, it was 1972. Railway Ground, Dhanbad. The Indian Army's 'Weapons from 1971 War ' travelling exhibition had halted at the City of Black Diamond. We went, packed in two cars-  the mothers were not there, we kids, my father and Gupta Uncle. It was a fascinating spectacle as the lines of excited people, children and grown- ups alike, filed past different  sets of weapons   - the military orderliness  intermittently broken  by loud sighs of gawk and awe from the crowd. After that it was time for some air gun shoots, hoopla  and eats at  the various stalls set up  in a corner of the ground.  

And then Bunty went missing for a second time in under three years. For about fifteen , interminably long minutes he remained untraced. I, the eldest of the siblings, even though single digit in age, was quite concerned.  I had heard  too many stories of children being kidnapped , deformed  and forced to beg at railway platforms, temples and level crossings. I started the search, so did the other boys- but with instructions not to stray too far lest they also go missing. Finally we heard  an announcement over the mike.

No, it was not for the Missing child, it was for the Missing father!! Bunty, now a veteran of one search, had quietly  spotted a May I Help You  booth and had sought assistance to trace his father who, he informed much to the amusement of the people out there, had gone missing.  There was a sigh of relief, and Gupta Uncle even took a dig at my father.

" Yaar Sahay, learn from your son. Tum kya isko khojte, yehi tumko khoj liya."

We returned home, and went about  our ways- against the backdrop of an acrimonious exchange between Papa and Mummy on  responsibilities of bringing up a child. My mother firmly rebutted my father's accusation against her for  not having taught her children the art of not  going missing at fairs.

" Listen, I did not say anything against Papa the other day in Patna, but it doesn't mean that even his son can go on and on, " she jabbed at him,  and then twisted the knife by relating a thirty year old story. 

It was over thirty years  since 1972 that I had not been privy to children missing from  the house . But then it happened again. It was in May, 2005 when we went to England for a short holiday. That day we had gone to witness the change of guard at Birmingham Palace. The crowd was large,  my seven year old son sat on my shoulders to get a view of the proceedings . Very soon his fascination waned in the face of some competing interest . At his insistence, I put him down and started to take some pictures. 

And then Tanuj went missing. In a foreign country, without any Tara or a May I help You  booth. The boy was a bit frisky for sure. In 1998, when he was just over a year, he had freed himself from his nanny and walked under the side railing of the road near Loreto College in Darjeeling. But his very brief absence had been quickly discovered when there was a loud noise as he hit the asbestos roof of a house ten feet below and the piercing abuses by the owner of the house alerted my wife, Sarla Chachi ( yes, the same one to whose house Bunty had left for thirty years ago)  and Bina, the nanny. 

But this was different. In an alien land, where ensuring safe possession of the passport was more important than the wallet, the sudden missing of a child was like a bolt. A quick search with nervous energy had not helped to trace out the boy.

And then the ghost of conjugal conflict surfaced. The blame game started and the search was kept on hold for sometime.

" Where has he gone ?"

"How would I know?  He was on YOUR shoulders," the stress on 'your' was accompanied by an  index finger pointed at my shoulder.

"What do you mean,  I had put him down next to you," I countered weakly.

"I never thought you could be so irresponsible."

Even as Tanya looked at us wistfully, her eyes searching for her little brother, I heard a sharp hiss.

"Now will you stand here fighting or go and search for the boy?" the voice hissed between clenched teeth.

"And you. Didn't I tell you a thousand times to hold on to your brother's hand?" the hissing juggernaut did not even spare my poor daughter. 

" Your boy is out there, " a Good Samaritan shouted.

What a sigh of relief  it was even though it did not ease the marital tension for the rest of the sulking day - right across Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly down to the tube ride to Guddu Di's home.