F O R T U N
A T E ?
(mera man
vanvaas diya sa)
1. I’m fortunate; and I’m not.
2. I have not been gritty enough, either, to
break free from the shackles of the norm, and go and live, to my heart’s
content, in a world I loved, dearly. What real good is it now for the heart to invariably
sortie out to forage its ephemeral feed in a no-where-world, to whose bourn no
creature can repair? Yes, the inexorable Mahakaal, well assisted by ravenous
human greed, has devoured the dear, old world blood, bone and marrow.
3. Often am I complimented on successful
accumulation of a fortune well before the age most people are seen still striving
for it. Though facile, the compliment can only be regarded as well earned: the
wherewithal, necessary to label anyone ‘fortunate,’ is easy to witness: the
decent house in the posh locality I live in; the plush corporate-office of a
premier company in the upmarket area I work in; the much sought after
prestigious public school, proudly continuing its legacy inherited from the
colonial era, my children attend; the
plum Govt. job my hubby has and wields admirable-to-some-and-enviable-to-some-others-influence
from; and the numerous gizmos that do keep creeping in, on one excuse or
another, and then stay put to ensnare, even strangle, one’s life when one
happens to be ‘fortunate’.
4. Ah, but who would ever know, and how, the
fortune I’ve missed on way to accumulating the ‘fortune’ so easily witnessed?
5. Once upon a time (so does it appear, now!),
I had the fortune, the privilege and luxury, of growing up in two kindly, caring,
all giving and all forgiving laps – one of mother Nature’s, and the other of my
parents’ - as they were and where they were, few strings attached.
6. But, first a common familial-social push,
and later on a self-generated-self-propelled ambition drove me commit the
cardinal sin: I grossly underestimated the worth of the two invaluable assets,
took them for granted, even thought of them as being hindrances. I kept ignoring
the muted call of my docile urge for investing in them more of my quality time
and stake. Like one possessed, I pursued the ever-importunate ‘fortune’, and
her myriad offspring, unabashedly bypassing, bypassing, the two dear, supportive
assets until they passed me by quietly – almost unnoticed.
7. And, now I come out of the stunning
stupor/stupidity only to realize the utter futility of my late awakening. How hard
and obdurately does the realization rub in the too lately awakened, badly
injured, conscience, and subject me to an un-sharable, all-consuming heartache!
8. The households of the hamlet I grew up in had
few of the now ubiquitous gadgets. In fact, the householders had little need,
or awareness, or even the means to acquire many of these. A family owning a
bicycle or a radio was a rarity. A kerosene stove, petro-max, newspaper,
motorcycle, TV, telephone etc. were things seldom heard of or seen. Even a pair
of shoes was luxury for most of the inhabitants. It was common for the majority
of them to buy, generally on credit, a cloth-piece to get sewn from a kurta and a short-length dhoti on the occasion of Dashehra. The much-coveted only dress,
gradually turning into tatters, was to last them until the next Dashehra came round. It wasn’t uncommon
for the common people to borrow someone else’s (who happened to be relatively
well off) outfit, when one had to go fetch one’s bride from the in-laws’.
9. The nearest pucca roads on the three sides of the village viz. the East, the
North and the West, were about an hour’s trudge; while in the South, no one had
any idea of where there was a road, if indeed it was there. The only sturdy
link to the world outside was the intrepid once-a-week-postman. What we grew up
to know by the name of ‘shahar’, was
some charmed, alien place, shrouded in wondrously glamorous secrecy, most like a
Victorian Beauty, to be heard of but seen not.
10. There flowed a seasonal stream close by
marking the southern boundary of the hamlet. After the rainy season had had its
sway, the stream too gradually stopped flowing, leaving behind several deep,
big pools in its course. It left behind; also, expansive spongy sandy stretches,
where we played out the greater part of the day while the sun was kind and the
weather not too inclement. It left behind a well-fed well, too, which would
proffer the thirsty sweet, nourishing water throughout the year. And it provided
ample feed – clay, nutrients and water - for the two large-hearted ancient guardians
– a Vat and a Peepal – who stood like two stout sentinels and generously offered
shelter and food to the exhausted, ‘both man and bird and beast’.
11. All kinds of birds – doves, pigeons,
parrots, peacocks, papeehas, koyals, oriols, hariyals, bulbuls, mainas, drongos,
wood-peckers, seven-sisters, cranes, eagles, kites, crows, vultures, owls, bats
- would find home in the dense leafy boughs. And, there lived numberless
squirrels, and a big troupe of red-faced monkeys, too.
12. Towards the end of the rainy season, there
came populations of butterflies and fireflies to flit in and around the two big
trees in daytime and night. Soon after the dusk, as the households put out
their little kerosene lamps - to save the precious commodity - the reign of
darkness grew mightier. To defy its all-pervasiveness, the fireflies would then
glow ever so bright!
13. On certain very special days in the rainy
and the autumn seasons, the playful clouds and the sunlight together would
create a riot of colourful patches and streaks, far more variegated and
mesmerising than the spectrum or the rainbow. Spellbound, I watched the
skyscape drifting, dissolving, reincarnating until my eyes got tired and the
neck stiff while the magic-show continued ceaseless. And, in certain very
special nights, the clouds – arrayed in white, or grey, or dark, or an all
mixed up apparel - would join the gentle, shy moon to create an equally captivating
scene, a little less colourful, maybe. While it were the golden or silver
rimmed cloud-patches that, riding the nimble breeze, rushed past the
small-sized, half-sized or the fuller-sized moon, the moon it was that appeared
to be ceaselessly rushing through the cloud-cover in tireless search for a
little wee open casement to exchange looks with me intently looking up from the
terrace!
14. As the autumn set in, the pools became
limpid. They would now host colonies of the water lily, which would bloom in abundance
at night. Just about the daybreak, the wind, laden with the water lily
fragrance, would start wafting from the pools into the hamlet. The ‘singhara’ creepers, planted in selected
patches by some low-caste entrepreneur, would float on the pools’ surface like a
thick dark green carpet. Autumn was also the season that offered us the best
opportunity for water-sport! We spent a lot of time splashing and swimming in
the translucent water, feeling its soft, bouncing, titillating touch, and paying
not a farthing for the great fun.
15. Then, came the winter, and with it came the
flocks of multicoloured geese to populate the pools, and cackle and swim around
the whole daylong. A few weeks later they were joined by long-necked glossy
black migratory birds, wonderful divers, who would sojourn thereabout till the
winter lasted. The cattle, however, drank at the pools the whole year round.
16. After a good winter-shower had washed the
sky, a bluish range of mountains, with several of its peaks rising up in the
sky, appeared running along the north-eastern side. From behind the mountain
range, a resplendent sun rose to survey all that lay under its watch and sprinkled
gold all over it. Its long slanting rays caressed the dew-drenched tremulous foliage in the fields,
and played with the rippling, shimmering waters of the pools. Soon, vapours
started rising up from the pools’ surface, and the cloudlets started gathering
up in the sky, shortly to begin playing hide-and-seek with the sun, and setting
up a match between the sun and the shade.
(‘bhalo
lege chhilo alor nachano paataay paataay’) [i]
17. The end of winter - and the advent of the
spring - it was when the fields became all full of the golden mustard blossom
and the mango orchards of mukul/manjari/baur.
While the fragrance of the mustard blossom touched the nostrils extremely lightly,
the fragrance emanating from the mukul made
one feel drowsy. Koyals and papeehas were now the prominent denizens of the
arbour whose calls would reverberate in the air almost round the clock.
18. By and by, as the temperatures began to
rise, squalls also began to come. Strong cool winds would be the first to blow,
followed by the dark grey clouds surging from the horizon, coming up right
above, spreading all over and releasing big, cool raindrops on to the parched
ground.
19. It was celebration time: full of glee, we
would run wild with the wind and whirl around in circles, embrace the cool raindrops
with hearts and arms wide open. Very reluctantly would we retrace steps
homewards but not before the initially coaxing, caring commands, had gradually turned
into grave threats.
(‘pagla
haawar badal dine, pagal aamaar mann jege uthe ...’)[ii]
20. The stern summer, who found it hard to
abstain from showing its furious temper long after the sun had risen, brought,
nonetheless, a few tender presentations: the green-golden glory of the amaltas, the fine (in fact, too fine for
many a nose not adequately receptive) fragrances of the cream coloured neem, the saffron coloured sheesham and the purple coloured shireesh blossom.
(kritam na
karnarpit bandhanam, Sakhe, shireesh magandvilambi keshram.)[iii]
21. To protect the inmates from the fearsome
summer the two guardians – the Vat and the Peepal – jointly constructed a vast
canopy (the taller, long-armed, Peepal stood about eighty feet to the
south-west of the more massive Vat). Under the cool, leafy benefaction of their
joint canopy, the adult of the hamlet would take a nap, and the cattle would chew
the cud, while we, the children, would play with/in the Vat-Peepal-leaves and
the sandy soil abundantly available underneath, during the long, torrid middle
hours of a summer day. We had acquired (can’t tell when and how) the skill of
making our own toys – cows, heifers, bulls, calves, carts, chariots and
homesteads – all with the fallen, or plucked leaves, the slender neem stalks (to stitch the leaves in
place) and the dry, sandy soil. We would gather the soil in the lower part of
our shirts; climb up a carefully chosen part of the hoary Vat-roots that spread
all round the bole; drop the lot there and watch it slide down on to the floor
below, already cleaned and bordered, as the finer particles stayed behind and
the grosser ones ran outwards. That was our flourmill!
22. Still now, can I feel the touch and sniff
the smell of the white, sticky Vat-leaf sap and the grainy soil mixed with the
cattle-dung particles.
23. How reassuring the mother’s lap is I
discovered one forlorn, windy, tepid, autumn-afternoon. After the sun had gone
down a little, I left home to play with my mates. Why I failed to find one, or probably
was turned away, I do not recall at this temporal and spatial distance. What I,
however, recall is this:
As a
last resort to lift my sagging spirits, I worked at ‘phitalis’ [iv]. With a few of them in hand, walked down listlessly to the pool-bank. Then, with an
arm, as if not mine, shot forth one or two, watched them stagger a miserable short
distance, and plummet
down.
No, no
fun for me here either. Crestfallen, I headed home, up the stairs, across the
courtyard, into the room, where Ma, sitting on a ‘peerah’ (a four-legged low seat), was busy painting a demarcated
surface of the wall. I flung myself straight in her lap and hid in the security
of her aanchal. Nothing did she
enquire or do except putting her hand on my head, body; and nothing did I
report or demand except feeling and smelling the security of her presence.
(“xxx
sheetal chhaayaa do... dukh ke jungle me...”./ “xxx and calm of mind all
passions went.”)
24. I spent a good deal of my childhood roaming
astride my father’s shoulders, or romping behind, or alongside him, on the craggy,
zigzag foot-paths or slender boundaries of the peasants’ fields for long,
carefree hours. One particular haunt of his was the approximately two-foot wide
parapet of the irrigation drain that carried water from the source, the Govt.
tube well, to the peasants’ fields – close by as well as far flung. Along this
drain, he would walk long distances musing over I knew not what. Occasionally,
he would suddenly get abstracted, sit down and write in earth, with the index
finger, the names of years – 1918, 1936, 1941, 1947 etc. in his print-like
hand. On other occasions, shlokas
would just gush forth in his well-tuned, sonorous voice. These were from Valmiki,
Bhas, Shoodrak, Bhartrihari, Kalidas, Bhavbhooti, Tulasi Das, Ravan, Shankaracharya,
Jaydev and many, many others. (Rightly guessed, without his telling I would not
have known this.) Sometimes, he would drop a leaf on to the running water, and,
as it danced and swayed onwards, keep pace with it, freeing it from snags along
the course. Great fun to watch, to share!
25. These experiences, sights, and kindly faces
I have failed to safeguard, tend and appreciate as much as I should have. These
have I let go, and irretrievably lost. And, all the while I have kept telling
myself, stupidly, “There’s time, yet.”
26. Every now and then, they beckon and make me
feel nostalgic, deeply dejected. I rue having lost them away much too cheaply
in search of the ‘fortune’, which might even be termed ‘misfortune’.
(xxx‘other
achhe onek aashaa ora koruk onek jado; aami keval geye bedaai, chaai ni hote aaro
bado...’ [v] // ‘tan ke sau sukh, sau suvidha me mera man
vanvaas diya sa’.[vi])
[i] Tagore. “Charmed
felt I by the light dancing from leaf to leaf.”
[ii] Tagore. “When wild blows the wind and amok run the clouds,
wild my heart springs up (to life).”
[iii] Kalidas. “The shireesh flower, (dropping down and)
kissing the upper part of (Shakuntala’s) cheeks has not been stuck in the ear-lobes.”
[iv] A
‘phitali’ was a piece of a
broken earthen-ware. With most of the jutting out points removed, it was rubbed
roundish, fit to be thrown in a rotating
motion, on the surface of the water. How far it would float and traverse before
sinking down depended on its concave shape and the smoothened rim as much as on
the angle, skill and force the thrower was able to apply. The farther it
traversed, the greater the sense of joy and accomplishment it generated!
[v]
Tagore. “Let
them, who harbour great expectations, accumulate a lot. I’m but for singing and
roaming around with no wish to become a
bigger guy.”
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