Dara Singh - the wrestler.

As an urban dweller it is difficult to imagine and understand life in a village especially what it used to be in the sixties of twentieth century. 

When we shifted to Betma in 1964 within six months or less I had made a range of friends of all ages: my age and about 10-15 years older. Damu was short for Damodar who had fascinated me most from our first meeting when instead of getting angry and bashing me up he gave me a fair deal when I dwindled his pocket money and mine too in the process. We were soon introduced to the whole family. Amongst his older brothers was Ghmau Da, who must have been 8 or 10 years older than me and was very entrepreneurial. Both Damu and Ghamu da used to assist Bansi da and Murali Da at the tea stall at the bus stand generally in serving tea to customers but at times in making tea also. Bansi da and Murli da were much older and very quiet so sometimes out of fear and some others out of respect I hardly used to strike any conversation as it was difficult to pick a subject to converse on, they both including Ghamu da dropped out of school quite early.. I wonder if they studied beyond primary. This was Kumrawat family who are traditionally in paan/beetle leaf business (Chaurasias). Damu also had two sisters an elder sister and a younger one and a younger brother who may have been two or three years younger but was treated too young to move around with us, he nevertheless would.

Like other panwaris in Betma, Damu's also had a small patch of land next to the small river that flowed most of the year outside the village where they used to grow paans. This was very special farming like grapes and required big skills to get good results. You would first make arbour by planting sticks that would be about 7 or 8 feet high and make a roof over them mostly of bamboo sticks. That provided shade and allowed the paan plants to move up alongside and then on the inner side of the roof. You also make beds like flower beds for water to run through and uniformly provide water to all the plants. Each crop would take between 6-8 months and in summer months would dry up unless watered. This farming would be done near the river on the riverbed as there would be a constant source of water that is needed in high quantity. Unlike these days, there were no diesel or electricity pumps and water would be drawn by other means. This was a very hard life and even the small piece of land consumed labour of the entire family. Their parents, mostly father, sisters and at least two of the five brothers would be there from morning through evening to ensure proper water supply, sorting good and bad paan leaves and carrying them home or directly to paan shops that sold the paans to end consumers. In India paan chewing is a way of life like breathing for many. Malwi paan ( grown in the Malwa region) stood apart in taste and quality from other varieties and was patronised by connoisseurs who would pay higher price for those long leaves and sweet taste, unlike many other variety that is bitter.

Damu's father had a small kiosk in the tea stall where all the brothers and father sometime would make paan for customers but it was folded long before, as it was too much to look after. Often times I would also go to panwari outside the school time and would enjoy doing titbits in the farm. Next to farm was also a ghat where ladies and girls who assisted their mothers would come to wash clothes. Some would also bathe their cows and buffaloes. I was too young to have any attraction for them, so don't recollect if I was fascinated with the activities at the ghat. The area was like mini forest and there were large number of fruity trees of tamarind, mangoes, bananas, ber (jujube), khajoor (desi dates) etc. that were free for all.. sometimes we would also climb on the trees to get them or to simply sit there and relax.

Damu and Ghamu da were also keen wrestlers and would be regular at the only akhara in the village on the extreme corner of the village on the other side of bus stand where most wrestlers and those interested in body building would turn up, do warming up exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, swing mugdar (a dumbbell, or more like a gada) and over the malkhamb. They introduced me to akhara where I became regular at an age as young as 9. Akharas head was one Amarsingh pehlwan who was otherwise a gwala having over a dozen buffaloes. But Mornings and evening he would spend a lot of time in akhara. He had a body that could crush people and his wrestling technique was so good that he remained unbeaten in most competition in the area. His daily diet of milk was enormous an unbelievable 10 litres+. He was a very soft spoken and friendly person with wonderful body and handsome face. In my later years Puneet Issar who played Duryodhan in BR Chopra's Mahabharat reminded me of my ustad Amarsingh pehlwan. Akhara gave an entire different dimension to my existence then. I too would be going there every morning and evening and will look forward to spending time there. 

It is difficult for myself to believe that gradually I was doing over 500 sit-ups and 300 push-ups. Besides occasionally exercising with mugdhar and malkhamb. In the process would sweat so heavily as if we were out in open on a thundery monsoon day.. drenched from top to bottom. My routine there involved smartly dressing up like young pehlwan.. we will remove clothes in a way that you would never be completely undressed and have a "langot" tied that covers your area that needs to be protected. My mother who was learning stitching in a "tailoring school" those days would stitch those as part of her homework but they were smart by any standard.

Wresting was indeed fascinating. Ustad ji would often tell us stories of his wresting competitions and we would be dumbfounded with them appreciating his skills and bravery and I would often imagine to be like him when I grow up. Since we didn't spent much time together between "jai siya ram"s that was our war cry while entering and exiting akhara, Ghamu da would tell many untold stories about ustad ji's various wrestling expeditions. Some people would also talk about Gama Pehlwan who died some 10 years back and was a charismatic free style globally unbeaten wrestler who was awarded "rustam-e-hind".  For lovers of the game it was a big loss although Gama Pehlwan had moved borders and used to live in Lahore after partition.

Dara Singh was the ultimate name in wresting world those days before he entered the film world ( it was not called Bollywood then). As the stories go,  which are quite believable, he was the unbeaten wrestling champion of "free style" in the world. He would first offer his brother Randhawa to anyone who challenged him and he would come into the arena only when Randhawa lost. As far as his own technique was concerned, he would take beatings from the opponent in intimal rounds to make it appear that he is a weak opponent and suddenly in third round he will turn around and will put down his opponent who will often turn up in a hospital. 

It was June1969 when Dara Singh had announced a global challenge to anyone in wresting in Indore's wrestling stadium. One Majid Akkara took the challenge and the dates for bout were announced. All tickets were sold in minutes after it opened for sell/distribution. Come the date and anyone who was not even interested in wrestling was also anxiously waiting for Dara Singh to "show stars" to Majid Akkara. Newspaper headlines will remain focused on the event weeks in advance. The same day there was a procession in the evening celebrating the "coronation" of Master Chandgiram as Bharat Kesari. When his procession was passing through Bambai Bazaar some people who were expecting another pehlwan to win the title started throwing stones on the procession that eventually lead to the first ever communal riots in Indore that always lived peacefully even in the testing times like partition of the country. The situation suddenly started worsening very fast so much so that authorities immediately clamped curfew in Indore and the Dara Singh - Majid Akkara bout had to be abandoned much to the disappointment of fans and spectators.

Dara Singh and his troupe was rushed out of the city around 1.30am and the first stop they had, to breathe properly and understand what had happened, was the bus stand in Betma where the only tea stall that was open was manned by Bansi da. When he saw Dara Singh asking for tea, he almost fell down and imagined it to be a dream and not a reality. Instead of making tea he suddenly rushed out and told people to call Ghamu da to meet him. Eventually within 10 minutes hundreds managed to reach bus stand to have Dara Singh's darshan who had tea, waved at people and rushed out to save himself from fans.

Next day when I got to know of the news I was in complete awe and looked at Bansi da as if I was looking at Dara Singh himself.

#betmastories

#darasingh

#freestylewrestling

Fair Deal.

Betma is a small hamlet some 14 miles from the heart of the capital of Holkar state, Indore. Those were the days when the erstwhile kings and queens still had lot of entitlement promised to them by Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel when he got them to sign the certificate of accession with the union of India and it was before Indira Gandhi had removed final feather in their caps, the privy purses and brought them equal to common man. Well not really, if you look at the life of the former Rajas and Maharajas they still behave somewhat in that fashion and either command respect or demand so when you deal with them. Just a day before in parliament when Jyotiraditya Scindia who recently moved over and shifted his place in the parliament, was speaking to another leader in the house addressed him as Maharaj, in jest or otherwise but he didn't feel awkward. Same way the road named after his father is still called Shimant Madhav Rao Scindia Marg.

Betma may have had some 1000 houses in those days with the population of under 5000 people. It was called a kasba, that is a bigger than a village and smaller than a tehsil, there was a weekly bazaar for locals and also for people living in nearby villages to do their weekly and sometimes monthly household stuff shopping of, spices, clothes etc etc. Like villages those days, there was a main road where most of the shops were located like grocery, pharmacy, tailors, barbers, pawn brokers, cloth merchants, utensil shops, veterinary clinic, doctors, dyers, it also had girls primary school, post office, etc. Rest of the village had only smaller shops catering to daily needs of neighborhood. Bus stand was not very far and was the main entry to the village from a highway passing through and connecting Indore to other cities like Ratlam, that would then enter Rajasthan near Chittorgarh and Jhabua that would further go to Godhra and Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

Coming from Indore before you entered the village was a gurdwara where Nanak dev ji had come and stayed for six months during his world tour. So the village also has a holy significance. Little further when the village boundary started, was a government middle and higher secondary school founded in early last century around the time when the first world war broke out.

Most of the buses plying on the route on highway would stop at the bus stand that was the most happening place in the village with several eateries, chai shops, a civil dispensary and a police station. It also had an आरा मशीन ( a wood cutting factory with a giant machine to slice tree trunks into smaller pieces used in construction of houses as well as used in making bullock carts etc. 

Bus stand area was also frequented by people young school dropouts, idlers and their likes who had nothing else to do.. they will sit around and watch buses coming and going while they sat in a corner and played cards as part of their gambling routine. Amongst the eateries was one famous shop "Amma ke bade". Apparently Amma didn't have anyone in the family and used to run this small eatery assisted by one or two small boys, making just "aloo bada".. it was different in shape and taste and cheaper than other places, I think a bada would cost 3 paisa in those days and there would be a queue in front of her shop. Many a times a bus would stop there only for a few minutes just enough for passengers to have tea or a cold drink sitting in the bus. One of my friends' family used to have a tea shop with enough space for 3 or 4  people to sit where most of the business would happen by serving tea to people who stood in front of the tea stall. In the mornings you would also get poha there. One will pay 3 paisa for normal tea and 5 for special tea. Normal tea would be prepared with half water and half milk and special will be with full milk. There was a time when after school I would go to bus stand and help my friend in selling Gold Spot, Fanta, Rimzim and other cold drinks in the buses.

When we moved to Betma I joined class 4 in primary school which was next to kachehary (a local court cum Gram Panchayat office) in the middle of the village and on a mound that may have been as high as a flyover but back then it appeared as if we were climbing a hill. 

One day a couple of months after we moved, I was playing with some friends outside the house that was the main bazar called "poora" bazaar aka "bada" bazar that used to be crowded on weekly bazar days and empty on other, with barely few people crossing the road on foot or on bicycle. There were practically no motorised vehicles, once or twice a bullock cart will pass. My friends and I were playing a game called "pitthu" with a cotton-filled ball made by me with cotton chindi (rugs, cloth scrap from tailoring shop) into small peace of cloth and stitching it using a needle.  I had become an expert in that so much that I would sell it for one or two paisa. While playing a shot over the stone heap the ball bounced and hit a passer-by who was carrying a small wire-framed-cage tray that had 6 small glasses filled with milk for some customer. ( Same fellow who later became my friend, whose family was running a tea stall at bus stand). That ball hit the tray and there went all the glasses and milk, nothing was left of it, everything went flying here and there. I was so shocked and gripped with fear of what would be coming next.. there was no where to run and hide to, I didn't even made an attempt. Next I heard from the person " I lost all I had, milk and glasses, you either pay for the glasses or for the milk", I was stunned as to how could a person be so reasonable without even negotiating for the damages. However, I agreed to pay for the glasses that amounted to some 15 paisa and asked for a month to pay back.. that I did by selling the cotton balls that I dexterously made and saved my skin. 

It was indeed a fair deal.. isn't it?

Pic courtesy internet ( hualong motor company website).

#betmastories

#betma

Thank you German.

It was the year 1980 and I had taken up a job with a multinational in Pune (then called Poona). After living in Bombay (now called Mumbai) for a couple of years and finding it fascinating as culturally it didn't belong to the rest of the country in those days. As aptly named Financial Capital of the country in those days Bombay was more like any western country where business meant business unlike the rest of the country where business meant "chalta hai", closely resembled Singapore as that in one place that was similar to where Bombay was just 15 years back and it was moving ahead and had matched any developed country in the world. Just to give you an idea of prosperity and the monetary progress of the city, the city provided 1/3rd of the taxes to the exchequer. Bombay was fast catching that progress Singapore had gone through. The ethos of the place was no nonsense, professional, committed, non interfering, unassuming. Anyone who was coming to the city was mesmerised by these characteristics and unless s/he wanted to be complete dud fell in love with the place. It offered a life that no other Indian city, then, offered. It was a land of opportunity, where if you had skills and luck helped you had a chance to make a meaningful life... even if not, you still made a life and a living in the city that was so supportive to everyone and embraced people with open arms.

Well, Pune was quite different from Bombay in the late seventies. It was a regional, parochial and not a metropolitan city. Unlike Bombay where people spoke different languages and had a mix of cultural not just from different parts of the country but also internationally too. Many were vocal in comparing it to NYC and I will completely agree with them. Living in Bombay I managed to learn the local languages both Marathi and Gujarati only to the extent to communicate with people who didn't understand either Hindi or English, but there were few such people in Bombay. I had also to accelerate my basic language skills in both these languages as majority of people there didn't understand that with the surname like JOSHI I am neither. A vast majority of locals who were either Marathi or Gujarati whom I used deal either personally or professionally would insist that I didn't know who I was and perhaps, forgotten my roots being away from Maharashtra. Well, in Pune this problem hit me 100 times more, no one will speak to me in the languages I was comfortable with with this notion, even in the office of the multinational that was at a project stage and most people around were locals barring a few who came largely from Bombay. In just about six months or less with this "pressure" to communicate with people, I learn fairly good amount of Marathi to not feel embarrassed. But this story is of the time before that stage.

One of the few international institutes besides multinationals like Philips, Atlas Copco, Widia Tools, Sandvik, Alfa Laval, Ingersoll Rand etc. in Pune was "Goethe Institut" Max Muller Bhavan on the Boat Club Road, as the name suggest there was a boat club in vicinity and the institute was on the banks of Mula Mutha river. This was the headquarter of this German language teaching institute in the country and the only one that ran advanced German courses, leading to equivalent to Masters in German and further specialised courses like teaching German. One of my friends Nitin had done his basic courses in German in Bombay and was aspiring to learn more so although he had a professional degree in naval architecture and was working as one he decides to take short time off to compare a course there around the same time I came to Pune. I only had a handful of friends either from my college days who were working in Pune and some introduced to me by a colleague and a friend from Bombay. He decide that I should stay with his college friends on Prabhat Road ( a posh locality mainly habitat by artists and literary people of repute) till I find my own accommodation in the city. Eventually, in a couple of weeks Nitin helped me in securing me a PG accommodation with Khandelwals who lived in the apartment block of the other side of the river Mula Mutha. But that's another long story I will talk about some other time

After being in Pune just for a week or two, I was to visit Bombay office and so I went to Pune Railway station to catch an evening train... I presume. it was the prestigious Deccan Express one of the two glorified connecting Pune to Bombay, the even more prestigious and faster train was Deccan Queen, that would only run from Pune in the morning and return in the evening. I reached station15 minutes before the departure time and weather being pleasant in October, was strolling on the platform while I waited. Suddenly, I noticed two people, just about my age, speaking a language that was alien to me. I started listening with some attention and putting two and two together I went and asked are they conversing in German. Both looked little uncomfortable with the intrusion and with a smile together said, yes why? I said no I just thought so since it appeared foreign and there is an institute of language here where I have a friend. The obvious question was "who".. again both said together, Nitin was my answer. They both knew Nitin since he was doing the same course like them he was also from Bombay. बस फिर क्या था!! By then the train came and we decided to sit together. 3 1/2 hours just went in air and we felt we didn't say anything more than exchanging pleasantries. 

The two gentleman were Chetan and Sujeet who became friends for life and we shared a whole world together and are still sharing.. not just that it opened a whole new world to me and their other linguist friends and friends' friends became my close coterie of friends with whom I spend and share my time and life regularly.

I still remember that journey that was so fulfilling for my life. I have seen people making friends in train journeys who are largely forgotten once you say goodbye at the arriving platform but this 3 1/2hour journey was indeed different.

Pic courtesy punekar.com.

Windy Windings.

It was always a fun to be at nani's house. So much attention, so many friends, cousins, uncle and aunts ..all sizes, shapes and ages but usually every one was happy go lucky those days as back then the modern life's tensions that everyone is facing were not there..in general life as relaxed, more so in villages and small towns and everyplace was small only when you look back and ponder. Dewas was a small town a princely state ruled by Maratha king Pawars. Even this small state was divided in two, Senior State ( बड़ी पाती) and Junior State ( छोटी पाती). They must have come in the late seventeenth century along with Holkars, Sindhias and the other Pawars who ruled Dhar, other side of Indore. Due to this "invasion" of Marathas who were sent by Kolhapur rulers as an expansion of their territory came hoards of Marathi speaking people of all casts that usually happens. None of these rulers specially Holkars and Sindhias ( originally Shinde) were upper cast brahmins like Peshwas of Pune, in fact they were not even Marathas like Chhatrapati Shivaji, the fighting community क्षत्रिय). Shindes managed to rule from Gwalior the largest territory of what is Madhya Pradesh today. Holkars had a smaller state from Indore to Omkareshwar and little more to the south. Pawars of Dewas and Pawars of Dhar ( that was once ruled by Raja Bhoj of Parmar dynasty who ruled in the 11th century, who is famous with the phrase that many of us use but I bet most don't know who he was in कहां राजा भोज और कहां गंगू तेली ( where is king Bhoj and where is Gangu Teli ( oil extractor) his subject ..we will talk about them some other time, both managed to rule smaller states almost the size of a district.  I may not know but to the best of my knowledge all the four Maratha rulers never waged a war against one another. So we had a fair percentage of Marathi speaking population patronised by the rulers who always considered themselves superiors to the peasants who were natives. That is one reason why people from Malwa ( the region that these kings ruled ) consider Marathi and Maharashtrian culture as part of their own and flock to Mumbai than to Delhi.

Weather of entire Malwa is so pleasant throughout the year that people find it hard to migrate to other places for climatic reasons. You might have heard the famous word "शब-ए- मालवा", meaning no matter what season it is the nights of Malwa are always pleasant.

Anyway, so I was talking of visiting nani's house in Dewas that had different set of rulers from rural Indore where I lived. Summer vacations there was by default but when we went there to attend some wedding or other of holiday season, the joy would double or triple because .. no schools, every cousin, second even third cousin would be there, variety of food to eat and since elders were busy in making arrangements no one would bother to check what you did. Since Nani was with the god my mother would take charge of the situation as de facto commander. She was quite friendly and an extrovert unlike her elder sister and would always be given more and more responsibilities on such occasions due to her management skills. Her brothers , three of them, were quite young so after Nani's passing she was the motherly person for everyone although she herself was quite young to handle motherly responsibilities.

Weddings those days use to run for weeks not the actual functions but the general preparations. Besides the fun at home many a times the whole extended family would turn up into Mahesh Talkies , the nearest cinema hall to watch a movie once or more every week. Mahesh Talkies was a flat single level theatre with moveable furniture for the front and wooden benches at the back. Since in proper cinema halls expensive seats used to be on the first floor balcony for better viewing, Mahesh Talkies back seats would be called Balcony seats. Since I was young I would be with mother and aunts in the ladies section that was behind the front seats and quite close to the "balcony" seats. Unlike, these days, we neither had money nor anyone would go out of the hall to buy titbits during interval so we were clearly deprived of that bit of extra pleasure.

During one such weddings of our cousin Sita Didi in the late sixties we had all the usual wedding festivity fun and two or three days later when outside guests went back, the close and young people in the family went to "tekri" ( a small hill is called tekri in Hindi especially in Malwa). In those days tekri had only two deities, badi maata and chhoti maata. ( There is an interesting story of these two deities चामुंडा माता and तुलजा भवानी, that we will talk some other time). It was mandatory to visit these temples whenever there was any function in the house to seek maatas' blessings. So out the whole "paltan" ( Hindi name for platoon) of about 10 of us and we marched to tekri on foot. Tekri must be some 200 meters in height and the lower periphery that had temples may have been about a kilometer and a half and there was another layer on the top that would be some 300 meters long and 100 meters wide. We reached the first temple in about half an hour from home and after spending 15-20 minutes went to another temple on the other side of the hill. 

After the "darshan" we all climbed to the top to get the lovely view of the city and beyond. Besides the newly weds we were two couples and some five or six children. As we reached the top the wind suddenly gathered pace and it became difficult even to walk. A few meters and some 10 minutes later as we were enjoying the windy weather there was a shrilling cry and when I moved my head I saw Sita Didi's saree flew away with the wind. Wind was so high that none of us could catch it and get back to her. There no other group on that part of the tekri so she was saved of the embarrassment. I think it was winter and my newest cousin brother-in-law was wearing a coat that he removed and gave a fresh look to Sita Didi.

It has been just about fifty years or so but I often remember this unique incidence and wonder whether I laughed then or cried. 

Pic of Tekri is a stock photo from Internet.

Balgarh - a bal (child) journey.

That was our Nani's house. In those days I often used to wonder why do we call our nanihaal Nani's home when I never saw Nani. Nani was never there as she was dead long before I was born. Looking at her picture I always thought how beautiful Nani would have been, her calm and loving face reminded me of the goddesses whose statues I used to see in temples.. unblemished round face, beautiful big eyes, red bindi and always a pallu over her head. Whenever I asked my mother, uncles and aunts they would talk of her as if she was a saint who loved everyone.. kind, caring for one and all. Oh! how much I wished Nani was there to love us, play with us and give us choicest of food.. sweets, halwa, puri, aam ras and whatever you could ask for. But Nani was with the god, I was told and she is watching us play and feeling happy. She would come in my dreams and talk and play with me, love me and be with me to give me what I missed during the day.

Nani's house had a perron ( a chabootara/ platform) in the front right next to it was a thoroughfare but in those days it was quiet even during the day, the only traffic was either a bullock cart or a horse carriage some cycles and occasional scooters and rarely a car passing through it. We would look forward to summer holidays when school will close and we would go to Nani's house. it was such fun, everyone would pay lot of attention to you, talk to you, care for you, at least for the first couple of weeks before they get busy with their chores and start ignoring.. but not me, being youngest I was always the cynosure of everyone. Although I never took any advantage of my VIP status I always enjoyed that attention. After a long day that would start soon after the sunrise and end well after the dinners. We would play in the playground of the school next to the house with friends who would not have gone to their Nani's place for some reason or other. At the end of the day tired all the kids (my siblings and cousins) and one or two elders would sleep outside on the chabootara.. unlike these days traffic won't disturb us and we will have undisturbed sleep till the sun starts bothering us.

I must have been 10 or less and had a school friend from village whose elder brother, also a friend was his late teens and married. He had some relation from his wife's side who lived 4 or 5 kilometers from Nani's house. One day he arrived just after breakfast, must have been late morning and after he had tea he mentioned that he is going to meet his relations who lived in the suburban area, it was a village next to the town . I was very excited and told him I will also join him, but it made no sense either to him or to people at home, so he quietly sneaked from the house when I went inside for something.

Realising he has gone, I decided to walk to the village. Everyone home was busy doing something or other and no one noticed when I left home and started walking in the direction my friend had gone on his bicycle. Only thing I knew was that he was going to a village near Balgarh. Balgarh had a textile mill and next to the mill there was a residential colony meant for staff and officers. There may have been several villages near Balgarh but it never occurred to me and I was confident that I will catch my friend and after meeting his relations we will come back home. I must have walked for nearly an hour when I realised that I actually don't know where I was going, I had no address, no name of the village, no name of the relation of my friend but I kept heading in the direction, as the road didn't turn anywhere and I reached Balgarh when the road had split. This point was right next to residential colony of the textile mill. While I was weighing  my options to chose the road I noticed my uncle's friend Prakash. He was shocked to see me there and asked as to what was I doing there. When he learnt the purpose and my confused state, he was sure I was heading for a disaster. Somehow he convinced me to turn around and go back home after he was sure that I remember the way back.

Back on the road dejected that I didn't meet my friend I started on my return journey and reached home in another hour or so. And gosh!! Everyone was looking for me not knowing what had happened and where I had disappeared without telling anyone. Suddenly, I found my VIP status had melted and everyone started pouncing on me all at once.

It has been over 50 years but I still remember my daring and ambitious mission that ended in a good bashing.

 

  

Shyama.- the black cow.

 It has been over fifty years but it is difficult not to remember Shyama, our lovely black colour cow. She came to our lives when I was about 8 or 9 year old. Our household was flooded with milk after her arrival not that we were short of milk but having ready-made availability, purity and freshness the consumption increased. Those were the days when drinking milk in the morning and evening was essential. Shyama was a healthy cow and must have been about 3 year old and would deliver her first born just a few weeks after she came to us. Sita was delivered soon at home and it was very exciting to see the new born, she was a young friend who won't resist our touching her and would respond gently and touching her fresh skin was like touching a furry animal..so soft and shiny. Shyama would initially attack us unsuccessfully when we went near Sita but gradually she understood we meant no harm and she liked when we played and paid attention to Sita. A few months went by and shyama was pregnant again the new born was named Gita a white female calf and our joy doubled with another baby friend, now we had a choice to play with and the fight amongst siblings reduced as we distributed our time between the two young four legged friends. Over period we were also growing and becoming stronger as we drank fresh, tasty and pure milk. The milk that came for the first fortnight after deliveries was even tastier and yellowish in colour. Apparently it was also nutritious and we used to get a kalakand like mithai ,made at home, with the milk that was plenty even after everyone drank.

Another year went by and we had Ramu, another addition to our family of three cows. Ramu, a male calf, was brown and white and different from Sita and Gita in colour and size (obviously), he was also very naughty as compared to his sisters and would bump us down, when not careful. Slowly, we learnt how to defend ourselves and also to play. Although naughty he also used to enjoy playing with us. He was the best companion between the three of them. Shyama, Sita and Gita would go for grazing during the day and return only at godhuli (dusk) but Ramu would be available for us to play whenever we were home. We would also run back home from school to be with him.

One day mother had to go somewhere and the responsibility of taking Shyama for grazing fell on me. Father had gone off for work and brothers went to school as mine was in the afternoon. I had learnt to take care of Shyama over the years so parents were confident that given the nature Shyama would behave in orderly fashion. When everyone left, I took the rope in my hand other end of which was tied on her neck. She followed me out of the house, then to the market, bus stand and finally after about a mile we reached the piece of land where green grass was aplenty for her to eat and there was no other cow around so the entire patch was hers. But before she had had even her first mouthful she suddenly gave me a jerk and of out goes the rope from my hand and Shyama ran so fast that even though I could run in the school with other kids, I was nowhere close to her and in a minute or two she disappeared from my vision. Shocked, I ran as fast as I could but by then Shyama was in the thick of trees and I couldn't figure out which direction to ran. Tired, anxious and worried that I will be questioned, reprimanded and perhaps beaten by mother and father both for my irresponsible behaviour due to which Shyama had run away. I sat down crying and after a while when I stopped sobbing and tears dried up, I managed to have enough courage and strength to face parents, so I got up and dejectedly started walking home. Reached home almost 4 or may be 5 hours after I had left and empty handed.

As I opened the backdoor of the house, guess what...Shyama stood there smiling and Ramu was happily getting his feed.

The act of disappearance.

Yesterday I decided to rearrange my wardrobe, not that it was required but since I thought it being a Saturday ( as such everyday is Saturday since the past 11 months ) let me give it a new look. Removed all the shirts, pants, jackets and many of those flexible drawers that systematically stored socks, eye wares, ties, watches, my old collection of mobile phones their accessories etc etc. While removing I carefully looked at most of the stuff and remembered a bit of history they had, how and when they were acquired and then decided to give them a shake by electrifying some of the old phones. Over 25 years I had acquired six phones and may have used 2 more as stop gap. I think kids these days have these many in 2.5 years if not sooner. The phones had only three brands Nokia, blackberry and One+. Stop gaps were provided my son that I cluded one blackberry and one Sony but they were used for a very short duration. The reason for changing the first phone was the bulk since the first phone was a Nokia 2110 that was a huge one like the wireless set. Much to the dislike ( not mine) I have kept all these possessions. I did try switching on some of these and they worked fine. 

Half way through when every content  of the wardrobe was sprewn around I realised the little kitten who is so active around the house was not to seen anywhere looked in every room, under the beds, inside almirah, drawers under the sofa... nowhere. Then I noticed a small opening to the balcony door and looked in the balcony without any success. These days he starts drooling when he hears the flutter of pigeons over the awning , so I thought may be following and concentrating on a piegeon he must have lost balance and fallen down from third floor.. I looked at  the second floor balcony, some extensions a floor below, on the ground.. but he was no where. Since the main door was shut so there was no chance of him going out from there. Kitchen , bathroom from top to bottom.. no success. 

I thought if he has jumped without hurting himself as cats have nine lives and survive huge falls may be he has comeback and is playing on the terrece with his neighbourhood companions on the terrece so I looked at every pot (gamalas) where he usually hides, under the water tank but he was not to be found anywhere.. frustrated, I tried unsuccessfully to look around in another apartment and then also tried to finish what I was doing, but couldn't focus worrying about the kitten. So, I decided to go down and look in the apartment's lawns and elsewhere.. 

As I was dressing up for my rare visit out of the house during these pandemic times and got my mask, I suddenly noticed from under the clothes, under the bedcover, under the duvet a sleepy face surfacing and yawning..

Oh god!! Was I angry..no, I went back to rearranging my wardrobe.