A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Sudhir and I were standing with the Traffic Inspector (TI) , Howrah , just next to the Howrah Station Tram Depot, ensuring taxis don’t stop at that point on GR Road .It was for all practical purposes our first working day for the on- job training after completing the first phase of Basic Training at National Police Academy , Hyderabad. The previous day, after reporting at Police Training College, Barrackpore, we had been bundled off in pairs to Howrah, North and South 24 Parganas for Puja duty. 

It was getting dark. During the breaks between breaking tail lights of errant taxis, we suffered the TI’s incessant boasts. It was during one such lull when the TI was firing on all cylinders that one teenager came up to him. We will call him Chap A.

“Is one allowed to piddle over there ?” he asked in Bengali, pointing towards a garbage dump towards the river side.

“Shut up , you cannot .“ “ What will happen if one does?” “ He will get a sound thrashing, du danda debo shalaa ke.”

“Ok, I will go and warn my friend, “ and Chap A went away . 

He went about 30 yards where his friend , to be referred henceforth as Chap B , was standing, awaiting clarification, and soon after hearing from his friend, began to ease himself, spreading his legs in a ten past ten angle, much like the hands of a watches in advertisements. The moment he was in the middle of his act, Chap A darted towards us.

“ Uncle, see what that person is doing. Thrash him up as you had promised.” 

The much medalled Inspector , having promised violent retribution just under a minute ago, and apprehensive about derision from us, was left no option but to rush towards the fellow’s friend. Willy-nilly, the Chap B was surprised in processus, and ran with his willy .

On any other day, the young, lanky lad would have made good his escape, but today, with his guard and drawstring dropped, Chap B didn’t stand much chance. The TI soon collared him. After being allowed to tie up his pyjama, the fellow confided that he had started to relieve himself only after being told by Chap A , his friend, that police officer had actually allowed it.

The Inspector realized that he had been taken for a ride, and glared with impotent rage at the young man who was now whistling and showing his thumb with unadulterated glee. 

“Hadeyharaami, rascal to his bones , “the Inspector muttered , his swag gone, his boast deflated , reputation battered, ridicule completed. 

 “Sir, beware. People here are very mischievous and crafty. “ 

We wondered where the hell we had come to. At NPA Hyderabad, people had offered soulful regrets to seven of us at being allotted West Bengal cadre. We had been fed with stories of a population in protest , of labour militancy, police unions, hartaal and gherao. 

Within an hour , we got a call to go to Belilious Road where the then Punjab Governor Siddhartha Shankar Ray was to come and inaugurate a Puja Pandal. It had drizzled by this time, roads had become muddy.  We reached and shortly the convoy of one of the most protected politicians entered the premises. However, the lead cars got stuck trying to reverse . Soon, the small ground in between the pandal and a stage became a theatre of intense cacophonic confusion, the cars revved up to prise out the rubber from the slush. The sound of the cars drowned the welcome salutations of Vande matram and Zindabad by a crowd gathered around and atop the boundary wall. But even as his partyman Priya Das Munshi was extolling the virtues of Sidhharta Shankar Ray, Tiger of Bengal ( ToB), the Governor got up and took away the mic . 

“ Who is in charge of the police bandobast here?” 

“I have seen a thousand but never as bad as this, “ he roared.

We would have been a hundred odd policemen, and a hush fell upon the gathering. The Superintendent of Police was in charge of the arrangements , and he was nowhere to be seen. Sudhir and I wondered what who would go if the SP was not going to come forward .

“Who is in charge of the police arrangement,?” ToB roared for the second time. 

I looked at Sudhir nervously, Sudhir looked at me with a crestfallen anxiety. 

And then the ToB looked at our direction. 

“You,” he shouted, “come here. I will talk to you now, the SP later.” 

I was about to step forward  when , a Deputy Superintendent of Police, tall and in a peak cap, standing next to us,  saluted. But just as he saluted in response to the Governor , the Superintendent stepped forward. 

He was short from head to toe, wide around his belly, his long hair curled out from the rim of his peak cap, and offered a salute which he had customised with his personality. The salute is done by raising the right hand palm open , the spine erect, the neck straight, fingers held together ( including the obstinate little finger which tends to part with the ring finger when so stretched) just above the right eyebrow. Basudeo Singh, my ustaad at NPA would tell us that the point at which the index finger met the middle should be touching the edge of the visor. 

The Howrah Superintendent had a different one. He brought his palm, inclined slightly inwards, till chin level, and then bowed his head down to meet the index finger.

“He does not look look like a Superintendent of Police , look at his belt,” the ToB mocked , beckoning at the multitude who agreed in a gleeful chorus. We also could not disagree much. The Superintendent smiled sheepishly, tugged his belt , saluted , and looked up for approval. The ToB let him go, and handed over the mic to Dasmunshi for more fawnsome praise.

I was shocked , and devastated. Where the hell had we come to. Teenagers making fun of cops, politicians openly upbraiding Superintendents of Police. All the misgivings about being allotted West Bengal cadre were coming to be true. Sudhir, too, was too shocked to offer any comfort. 

During night in my room in the Railway Officers Rooms atop Howrah Station where we had been accommodated, I recalled my first day in another metropolis which had become my home for almost 7 years- Dilli.

I had reached Dilli on a warm August in 1981. Probably Sonbhadra Express. To realize the Bihari dream of civil service success via Dilii, leaving behind a first class history faculty of a top class college, Patna College, founded on 9th of February, 1863 in a Dutch Opium Godown by the huge Ganges. The admissions were over in Delhi University , which traditionally opened on 16th of July ( if not a Sunday) those days. 

So there I was, a leather suitcase in hand, to find out Raju Bhaiya or Rajendra Dayal of Kirori Mal college. I boarded a bus from the Paharganj side ( there was no Ajmeri Gate entrance those days). Was it route 110 ? I can’t recall. It took me some time to attract the conductor’s attention and ask for a forty paise ticket to Maurice Nagar, and in the process gave away my roots.

“Dakhila lene aaye ho? Bihar se ho ?”

I turned around and found one thin middle aged man, with a thick mop of salt and pepper , was dressed in a pair of  white kurta pyjama , a bag was slung across .

“ Ji haan , have come for admission“ I replied, in a not too eager manner the purpose of my visit. There were other people around him, probably his students. Within a minute, he got a seat and so did one of his students. 

 “Uthho, is ladke ko baithne do,” he commanded the boy. 

I sat down, tired and grateful. He inquired about my marks, where I wanted to take admission, and the subject.

 “Do you know anyone?”

 “One Rajendra Dayal of Kirori Mal College. That’s all. “ 

He asked for a pen and paper, and his students promptly obliged. He wrote down, in Urdu, I didn’t understand a word as I chased his pen from right to left. 

“Quersihi saheb ko de dena. Farasi Department ke head haiN. Maybe he can help. He is a good friend. “

I thanked him. Soon it was time for him to leave. As the group was alighting, he stopped and commanded one of them. 

“You stay back and drop him at Maurice Nagar.” 

“Bacche, all the best,” he wished me, smiled and alighted. 

I never saw this kind hearted soul again in my life. 

 Delhi had welcomed me with open arms. 

It remains the city I love to visit. I am simply bowled over by its medieval monuments, and would want to visit them again and again, probably alone, as earlier occasions of visits have been marred by impatience of friends or family members. I would like to visit the lesser known trails as well . A big part of me will always stay in this city, not everywhere, but in that place bound by the Khyber Pass, Kingsway Camp, the Ridge and Kamla nagar or K’nags - yes, Delhi University and within it my college, Kirori Mal or simply KMC. Sometimes when I want to get away from it all, I retreat to the recesses of memories of those days - the hostel corridors, the bun anda and cha at Jaisingh’s , the hours in the library, churning out the tutes, the the college fests and the waft of weeds, the DTC night specials, the close shaves with college and police authorities, the Civil Services grind, and the final exit via Dholpur House on Shahjahan Road. 

But . then  if there is a city I don’t want to work and live in , that again, paradoxically, is Delhi, even though some of my most loved ones are in Delhi. New Delhi is depressingly sarkari. I could never like the narcissistic stonecraft of Raisina Hill structures or the blandness of government housing estates in Moti Bagh, RK Puram, Rabindra Nagar, etc.

The empire was at the beginning of its decline when New Delhi was built, and typically evolved into a cut-off, guarded, almost distrustful - like its Lutyens and Baker, its two architects who fell out- city.  The large spaces which separated the melancholic bunglows in Tughlaq, Moti Lal, Rajendra Prasad and other roads were informed by that mindset. Spaces induce coldness, and that is what gripped New Delhi and its people. The ruler and the ruled remain coldly separated even today. There is a roughness in the air, there is war on its roads , and whispers about fixers abound in its corridors. This was not the Delhi where I had spent some of my best years.

On the other hand, Kolkata, which had disappointed and distressed me at the beginning, grew on me. It is easier to live in , easy on the pocket, far less polluted-more so after significant improvement in its solid waste management. Its traffic is managed by one the best traffic police forces in the world. The City of Joy is safer for women, its cuisine is top of the shelf and it has some of the best clubs in the country.  I opted to stay in Kolkata during both of my central deputation tenures- CBI and CRPF. Calcutta was built, not by a government, but by merchants at a time of buoyant optimism. The social origin of the city informed its evolution.There were no Civil Lines in Kolkata, people mixed everywhere, the buildings also stood next to each other. In short , there was nothing official about it. Over the years, I became a diehard Kalkatiya.