MY BABYHOOD DAYS

I was playing with young grass in the compound of our dwelling when my father suddenly came and took me to my first school. I did not know where I was going and I had no notion of a school although my father once or twice said it was time I should enter a school. My mother was not too enthusiastic about it and when my father beckoned me said that it was too sudden and early

As we entered the school a dark middle aged woman asked my father my name, age etc. and without much ado I was directed to a classroom. Some singing was going on and I was directed by the teacher to join the singing. We stood in front of the room facing it, sang a song I heard for the first time. I did not know it so I moved my lips following others. I heard and sung that song innumerable time later in my life. It was “Jana Gana Mana”...our national anthem.

Until this point of time my father was there and I thought it was all over and now he will take me home. However he smiled and told me to be a good boy and prepared to leave. At that point concept of being alone without my parents was totally unthinkable to me and I began to cry loudly and thrash my hands and feet. The lady gave me a few lozenges and said a few soft words and my father said he will come back soon. At this I calmed down somewhat and my father left. I rejoined the class. The room was full of little boys and girls and everybody seemed to do what they liked although the teacher seemed to say something. Only other thing I remember is that the room was full of toys which I never saw before.

At the end of the school my father came back and took me home.

We lived in a sleepy little place called Laheriasari in Darbhanga district in Bihar. Our place, although rented, was almost palatial in size with 11 rooms and a kitchen. My father worked as a District Sales Representative of an oil company named Burma Shell.

He managed to earn a bit of money by dint of hard work and native intelligence (although he could manage to pass only intermediate level before he was forced to join office at the young age of 15 due to financial needs) and bought a car (it was not so easy to buy a car those days) in the year of 1958, the same year I was born. The introduction of the car (An Ambassador Mark-1) and I were almost simultaneous in the family and the car served us for next forty years or more.

He was a handsome man, although not very tall but very proportionate and fair.

My mother was a simple woman who spent most of her time at home, mostly alone as my father was frequently on tour. I and my elder brother were her only companions except the “dais’(maids) and occasional neighbors.

We had a large compound where I played cricket with my brother with a rubber ball. One day as he was bowling I swung my heavy bat, perhaps heavier than myself, which unfortunately missed the ball and hit my head. It was quite an injury and my mother was inconsolable about it and panicked and somehow managed to put some ointment or something and made me safe and comfortable again.

The school was mostly fun with lots of toys and playing in a playground where a lot of birds used to come. One day I took out my tiffin box which my mother gave me and surprised to find strange looking sweets inside it. They tasted  exquisite and I was still wondering why my mother was not providing me with these everyday when a teacher came and started to search for something. It transpired that I ate from the lookalike tiffin box of the daughter of a “Nawab” who happened to sit beside me. The poor girl had to eat the “halua” my mother sent for me.

We played all day with a bit of learning. Everybody had his or her birthday celebrated in the little school. On my birthday my mother came for the first time to the school in a rickshaw with biscuits and sweets in her hand. We all enjoyed those things except one boy who started to have nausea and vomited.

At the end of school we eagerly ran outside and one of the servants waited for me with a bicycle to take me back home. The journey to home was fun as the streets were dotted with nice  little houses, gardens and playgrounds.

One day in the school my teachers were running and playing with each other (they were actually quite young women who spent some time at school) at the outside courtyard and suddenly one butterfly flew in and sat on one of the teacher’s head. The other ones began to say “ Hey look, you have a butterfly on your forehead. Wedding bells are going to ring soon for you.”

I reported this to my mother during lunch and when a few teachers gave our house a friendly visit my mother related it to them. They were taken aback a bit and laughed and said “Dulur samne to kichui bola jabe na dekhchi” (“ We have to be careful what we say in front of Dulu”).

My father worked in a separate office room. Numerous people visited him for different reasons and some sent us gifts. Huge bags full of mangoes used to come at our home during summer.

I used to play with a few children in the quite spacious patio and with the little car my father bought for me. It had two pedals and I was all the time pushing the pedals and moving up and down in the verandah and the large corridors inside. I feigned to smoke a pipe like my father and used to have frequent “accidents”. Somehow accidents meant glamour to me and my constant companion Usiah (the little daughter of our maid of my own age). My mother sometimes used to watch my activities surreptitiously which I disliked. I wanted to be alone when I played and have “ accidents’” in front of Usiah.

Then one day I and Usiah found a packing box, got inside it and began to give “injections” to each other. On my birthday I was presented with a ‘”doctor’s set” from school. It had a stethoscope, thermometer, wool, syringe and a few other things inside it. I pedaled my car all day with my doctor’s set and poked my stethoscope at my brother and mother at my sweet will. Giving “injections” were of prior importance because it added “glamour” to me.

As I and Usiah “injected” each other we soon found that the thighs and the particularly the portion above it were places we were most interested to give injections. I still remember I had quite an erection and  it was my most pleasurable moment of early days. The only thing I was disappointed at was that it seemed to me was  Usiah was not showing her“thingy”.What she showed was a bit wet and smelly. I did not know that Usiah had a different “thingy”.

I do not know how good student I was. It did not matter. What I remember is that one night I made a mistake in whatever sum I was doing and my mother was furious at it and  hit my back with a scale. And the scale broke. The scale was a very light one and I was not hurt at all but my mother suddenly became very apologetic and in a fearful voice pleaded me not to tell my father about this. I was a bit amused by this sudden turn of event but kept mum about my promise not to tell my father. I saw a good opportunity to blackmail my mother who tortured me everyday with sums and all that and smiled inside myself. However after sometime I said “yes” to my mom and went to sleep. At that night I could hear my mother confessing to my dad about this “crime’ of her in a low voice in the adjacent room.

At night I generally refused to eat food that was offered to me. At this time our servant Rameshish  would begin to tell me about ghosts who haunted the house and broke the neck of children who refused to eat food .This made me eat my rotis quietly.

At this time the war with China broke out. People talked with my father about how Chinese forces were fast approaching inside Ladakh and NEFA(now Arunachal Pradesh) and Assam. There were trenches dug in the big “Polo Field”. My elder brother, Rameshish and I used to go there every day in a bicycle and play hide and seek there. I used to be put inside one of the trenches after which they vanished. I came out of the trench struggling, would not see them anywhere and feel rather forlorn when suddenly they would appear and laugh at me.

At some point at this time “Chacha Nehru” came to Laheriasarai and gave a speech in the Polo Field. Rameshish went there with a tractor and asked me whether I wanted to come. Although I wanted terribly my mother forbade me and I lost the opportunity to see Jawaharlal Nehru.

One day Rameshis and my elder brother were mixing something green which they ate. I wanted to eat too but they did not give it to me although I tasted a little. It tasted queer.

After that my mother took me to a neighbor’s house for a lunch invitation. It was quite a long time before we returned home but my brother was nowhere to be seen Reports began to come in that he was being seen riding his bicycle dangerously over a thin railway line.

At about evening he came back. Suddenly I saw my mother holding his hair and beating him furiously with a stick. He was simultaneously crying and vomiting. My mother was shouting “ Bandor fer siddhi khele tor gola tipe mere felbo”( “ Monkey I will strangle you to death if you ever touch cannabis again”). My brother was sick and could not move. My mother was alone and  did not know what to do and cried . Then the tall, dark and somber tutor of my brother Haridas Babu came and advised my mother to give my brother some raw tea liquor. This acted like magic, my brother vomited a little more but became normal again

My brother also told me that magicians could make things vanish. I wondered how it could be done. One night I took a futo –poisa ( a coin with a hole at the middle of it) and tried to “vanish” it. I found my mouth was the best place where it could be hidden. Unfortunately the coin slipped inside my tongue and went straight to my stomach. I did not speak about it to my mother in fear but later I told. My father took me to the hospital where the doctor made an x-ray of my belly and found the coin was  lodged inside it. He gave my father some liquid which I drank after meals for a few days. Everyday my poop was searched diligently to find the coin. And finally one day it was found. Everybody laughed and smiled and rejoiced at my poop.

And then Diwali came. The tops of small boundary wall of our compound were lighted up with ‘dia’s (oil lit lamps).The whole neighborhood was a sea of light. There were chorkis and kali potkas and dodomas. Our neighbors sent us sweets. My elder brother even tried his hands at uron tubris. However which amused me most were chunchobajis  which spade at velocity at surprising angles and directions sometimes causing utter panic among who were in the vicinity.

A few days later father was transferred  to Calcutta and a new phase of my life began. My Laherisarai days were over.