Ducked - The naked truth

Vacations took us to New Delhi every couple of years. Great time to meet cousins and an awesome time to be pampered by grand parents. I think grand parents instinctively know that the best way to pamper kids is with food. And Delhi is a great place for food as any Delhiite will attest – chola-bhaturas, gol-gappas, kababs, tikkas, butter chicken - I could go and on. Life in Delhi was bliss.

On one winter trip, I was around eight years old. My aunt and her kids had also descended into town and we had taken over grandmas home, pantry and peace. Pillow fights, Dark room, pillow fights in dark rooms, pillow fights in dark rooms with body tackles....Life was really good. Groups (Gangs) would form and the weaker (younger) ones would be bullied...oh the power of being older and stronger! Dictatorship ruled. Life was really really good!

While Indian parents are a pretty tolerant lot and go through a lot of sacrifices to pamper and spoil their kids, they also, I think have a breaking point. So, When our moms and grandma were reaching their breaking point with six rowdy kids in the house, they had a secret meeting ( this part is not true, I am just making it up for impact), they came up with a master plan that they would arrange for a trip to the zoo for the kids over the weekend. So far so good, but who would volunteer to play chaperone?....sorry no takers, zip, nada. So here is where the master plan came in. Get the neighbors' college going son to play chaperone - just pay for his zoo admission and food. The plan worked, the neighbors son fell for the trap, and off the seven of us ( Micky and the six dwarfs...oops kids) all packed up in our winter clothing, boarded the DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) bus and were off to the zoo.

A thirty minute, uneventful bus ride later, we were at the zoo. We went wild ... The animals in contrast seemed tame and timid. Three hours went by very quickly, we did all the regular stuff kids do at a zoo...monkey with the monkeys, monkey with the lions, monkey with each other. Our escort Micky (a pretty cool and nice guy) held up pretty well. He made sure we stayed out of trouble. It was now nearing lunch time and how do you keep a bunch of foodies without food for over three hours?... So we all settled down near a pond with a fountain in it and a bunch of ducks. The packed sandwiches came out quickly and were devoured even faster. We had a few left over and so we decided to feed the ducks too. Here is when the fun starts, I was roly poly even as a kid. While feeding the ducks , I leaned over a bit too far and my centre of gravity shifted too far out and yours truly was in the pond with the ducks. Micky was quick and was able to catch me by my collar and pull me out safely; frozen and shivering and drenched to the bone. Things could have been worse, I did not know swimming, I could have drowned in the two feet of water!  Things would have been really bad then for Micky. He was worried, I was drenched in the biting Delhi winter and we did not have a change of clothes - we were at the zoo, not the beach! I was shivering from the cold and Micky from fear.

Fear and responsibility can get the creative juices flowing very quickly, Micky quickly got hold of me and rushed me into the nearby rest rooms. He got me to take off all my clothes ( in case you are wondering.....yes my underpants too). He peeled off his sweater and got me to wear it....brilliant.....the sweater was like a nice western dress, it came all the way to a few inches below my knee....ridiculous!....can you imagine what I was going through.....first you fall into the pond and the gang (cousins and siblings) has a riot laughing at your expense, then you are stripped down and clothed in a knee length sweater and no underpants! And now you have to travel with the snickering gang in a public city bus! Without underpants! Life was really bad now....at least for me, Micky was worried too. For the rest of the gang, life was great, they were having fun, with every glance and snicker of theirs, I felt more and more disrobed. The safest thing for me was to stand in the bus behind Micky and stare aimlessly out of the window. Just me and my bare thoughts. The co-passengers in the bus were a little more civil, they gave me a curious look-over and quietly looked away....small mercies!

When we got home, I was in a miserable shape, I was crying deep inside and shivering with cold and shame. The naked truth would soon be out. I teared up, Micky was a little better off than me, but the rest of them were having a blast. They each wanted to rush into the house first with breaking news - Manbir - ducked, disrobed and shamed in public! They were rolling on the floor in fits of laughter as each of them wanted to get their little part of the story in. I think it helped Micky and me, the elders also joined in the rejoicing , they did not give Micky a hard time, they appreciated and thanked him for managing the situation pretty well....I agree, things could have been much worse!.

Whenever we go out now, my wife carries a change of clothes for our daughter! I think I may have narrated this story to her when we got married.

Doctor, Chef or Archeologist? Bug Off

Road trips were a highlight in my childhood. One of the best things about my dad's job was that we got to go on road trips all the time. The official tours were often several days long and if we had vacations at school we would get to go along. We saw a lot of India and we got to experience it up-close, the diversity of cultures, religions and languages was fascinating. It had a major influence in my life; I think it made me tolerant, inclusive and adaptable. I learnt a few languages along the way and a lot of the regional cuisines became part of our regular cooking at home.

But let's get back to the trips. One trip in particular. We had gone to visit my sister who was in boarding school in Hazaribagh and we were on our way back to Jhumri Tilaiya (see my earlier post on this blog: Where is Jhumri Tilaiya?). It must have been around eight in the evening. I was sitting at the rear in our ambassador car and I had the window seat, a privilege which was available on a strictly first come first served basis amongst us three siblings. On this trip it was just me and my brother, so there was peace, we each had our window seats. My window was rolled down and I was enjoying the passing sights - the cattle, the villages, and the evening breeze. The tranquility was shattered suddenly when something from the outside came and lodged itself into my right ear. I was in pain and in tears. The insect, that turned out to be the size of a beetle, had no way to get out. It was trapped in a human ear and I guess bugs cannot fly backwards; it was a one way street! We were both shaken up and confused and in pain. The more the insect squirmed, the more I did in pain. I was now hysterical. My dad quickly pulled the car into a nearby roadside Dhaba. For a moment, I forgot my pain; the aromas of the Dhaba food over powered my senses. I wish we had stopped at the Dhaba under totally different circumstances.

I was quickly carried out of the car and put onto a charpai in the Dhaba. The flashlight from a trucker came in handy and it was discovered that the foreign object lodged into my ear was a bug, it was alive and kicking (now I know where that phrase comes from)! The Dhaba was just outside a village and thanks to the resourcefulness of the folks at the Dhaba; the local doctor was summoned from his home. In what seemed to be an eternity to me and the bug, but must have about fifteen minutes, the doctor arrived on his bicycle. I think this was not the first time that this doctor had dislodged a bug stuck in the aural chamber of a kid. He quickly assessed the situation and almost immediately had a game plan. He asked his ad-hoc nurse (the Dhaba cook) to heat a spoonful of oil; I screamed louder, the bug squirmed harder! Four people caught me and pinned me down on the charpai, the bug anyway was pinned, and the doctor took the spoon of hot oil and started pouring it drop by drop into my EAR! He had turned into a chef! He deep fried the bug right there in my right ear! A new culinary discovery! If this made it onto the menu of a restaurant, the description would be something like this

"A live bug fried crisply to perfection in the aural cavity of a kid by pouring one drop of hot oil at a time, thus preserving the integrity of each limb of the bug and the hearing of the kid."

The misery of the bug was put away quickly, but how about me? I screamed, kicked and squirmed harder. I had heard of 'from the frying pan into the fire' but this was "from the frying pan into the ear" (it does rhyme).

The doctor turned chef, turned archeologist, opened his bag and pulled out a small pair of forceps and a very dangerous looking long, pointy implement. I could see all this from the corner of my eye, I could not move much, since I was still pinned down, but I could scream, so I did - louder than before. I wonder now, did the bug have it better than me? My ordeal just went on and on. The archeologist went to work; carefully positioning his “cold as steel” implements on my ear lobe and readied himself to go after the treasure. He had a perfectionists desire to extricate his culinary creation in one piece. I must say he achieved it brilliantly, because the minute he put it on the palm of his hand my concerned parents and the curious onlookers quickly completed a visual audit and in unison confirmed that all the limbs were indeed intact! The attention quickly shifted from me to the doctor, no chef, no archeologist; he was a hero that night and I wonder if his children and grand children got to ever hear this story from him.

The Varanasi Torpedoes



First Jobs, First Dates, First anything…. they all have a special place in our hearts and minds…My first job in 1986 was with HCL (Then Hindustan Computers Limited) and after a 8 week in-house training, yours truly and two others were packed off to Lucknow,  to be part of the team setting up a new branch office…. My territory was Eastern Uttar Pradesh (Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Allahabad)…

Travel started almost immediately, A typical month would mean 10 nights on Kashi Vishwanath Express train traveling between Lucknow and Varanasi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varanasi) for the over night journey. Get off at Varanasi @ around 5:00 am and get a Rickshaw for Gautam Hotel ….Great value at that time ----Rs.120 a day with a sumptuous breakfast thrown in – As a bachelor, in your first job---this was a great perk!...The Rickshaw guy(s) of course wanted to deny me this perk and would invariably try and get me to some other hotels where they would get a Rs.10 commission every time they got a new customer!...The story was always the same….”Sahib, Gautam Hotel is totally sold out, there is a marriage party staying there” and my standard retort was that I was also part of the marriage party!

The day would start by reaching Godhulia (Translated – where cows were bathed—This was a big market square : check this article : http://archive.deccanherald.com/Content/Jun152008/finearts2008061473502.asp ) by 8:00 am and getting ready for the most amazing roller coaster ride in India…from Godhulia to Banaras Hindu University (BHU). A 13 passenger auto rickshaw (Three wheeler) hurtling down the narrow streets of Varanasi at break-neck speeds of 40 km / hr! That is right they would seat 13 in that vehicle with an “official capacity of 4 (including the driver). Since I was a “Babu” ( Tie and briefcase) , I would get the privilege of sitting in the front with the driver…so far so good….till you saw another 13 passenger auto coming head on from the other direction at the same speed with a very clear intention of ramming into you!!.....The streets of Varanasi were designed by measuring the widths of two autos side by side and adding a few millimeters for tolerance!....so with these 2 missiles loaded with 26 people in all and coming from opposite directions at break-neck speed, the only choice for the un-initiated was to close your eyes and pray for a miracle to happen….and amazingly the miracle happened every time….At the very last second before the collision the 2 drivers would somehow swerve in opposite directions and come right back to the middle of the road without a scratch -and 24 sighs of relief..   If you were an atheist, after this experience you would certainly become a believer!!   As they say…another coat of paint on the autos and we would have had a collision......The scary part was that I had to undertake the same roller coaster on my way back. After my first 2 trips - I was a veteran and had overcome the fear of the Varanasi Torpedoes.

Where is Jhumri Tilaiya?

Jhumri Tilaiya (Hindi: झुम्री तिलैय) exists. Forty years after I left Jhumri Tilaiya, I remember a few incidents vividly and most everything else is hazy. I turned to the web to find out more, JT has an interesting history and some notoriety and no surprise Wikipedia has a pretty exhaustive section on Jhumri Tilaiya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jhumri_Tilaiya ).

I found a blog too http://squarecutsblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/jhumri-tilayya-town-of-farmaish-senders.html .

The purpose of my blog is not to prove Jhumri Tilaiya exists but to recount some of the memorable events in my journey from Jhumri to Atlanta via KGF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolar_Gold_Fields), Udaipur, Jallandhar, Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Lucknow, Hyderabad, Indore, Rajkot & Bangalore...

The Great Escape - 1

I was in grade (class) 2 at that time and would walk to school, a short 5 minute walk. The government (public) school and our neighborhood (colony) were across from each other and separated by the Ranchi-Patna Road (National Highway 31). And if your were wondering, yes I had to cross this highway everyday to school and back - the traffic was not only bicycles and bullock carts but all kinds of other motorized vehicles including the most dreaded National Permit trucks. I wonder if they were given the National permit License to PLY or PLOUGH.

That brings me to The Great Escape - 1 (there are a few more in my journey and saved for other posts). It was a pretty regular day I was on my way to school , except that I was a little late that day and in a hurry, so I was running to school and just as I got out of the neighborhood and neared the edge of the highway, I had to make a split second decision. There was a NP truck hurtling down the highway, if I waited for it to pass I would be late to school and if I decided to cross the road and get run over, I would never ever get to school. Punctuality was a big thing for me then and still is and I guess I had not come across the proverb "Better Late than Never". So without breaking a step and with my satchel swinging wildly on my back I dashed across the road. To my horror - The trucker also did not break a step and continued hurtling down (I even suspect that he accelerated at that very moment and came directly for me -maybe he had had not scored his kill for the day!). In those few agonizing moments, I might have been the fastest kid on earth - TOUCHDOWN!! I was safe, but I kept running - my heartbeat maxed, I could hear the expletives from curious bystanders and the trucker as I beat him in the epic race. He sounded angry and defeated that a little kid had got the better of him, I kept running - I had to be in time to school, there was no time to celebrate. Did I say celebrate?....even now,  every few years I get nightmares of the NP truck hurtling down towards me and it always has the face of goddess Kali (Wikipedia: The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death. Kali means "the black one") painted on the bumper or bonnet - How appropriate!

On another note - Is it a coincidence that my best friend in Jhumri Tilaiya (JT) also lives in Atlanta? - So we have at least two Jhumru 's (JT Residents) in Atlanta. 

On yet another note: the government school that I attended was called कच कचिया school , no idea why, maybe some Jhumru from that era can explain one day .