Hindi hain hum...

The Pakistanis are a worried lot. This time it’s the infusion by stealth of `our’ shudh Hindi into `their’ paak Urdu. Our Kareena Kapoor is `sundar’ (she isn’t, but go along with me here), while their Veena Malik is `khoobsurat’ (again, she isn’t but...).   Check out this clip from a light hearted talk show they have called Hasb-e-Haal, where even the otherwise hilarious Azizi laments this `cultural invasion’. As if to get even, they are now pressing for the airing of Pak channels in India (a long overdue step, to be dealt with in a later post).

I am with the Pakistanis here. In fact, I have for long lamented the infusion of shudh Hindi into saral Hindi. Ask any villager in any part of India why he wishes to educate his kid, and he will tell you “Padh likh ke daaktar ya injiniyar ban jaye”.  Apparently, everybody and his aunt know what an injinayar is except the Govt of India, who insists that the correct term for engineer is `abhiyanta’! I once went looking for the office of the Executive Engineer in DESU’s Mayapuri office in Delhi. I passed it three times, till someone pointed out the board - `Adhishasi Abhiyanta’ – this to someone who even the linemen and peons of DESU call `X-EN’ – ok, AXE-EN since it’s Delhi.. 

Vinod Khanna once remarked that the Hindi News Bulletins over All India Radio were not really `Hindi mein samachar’ but `Samachar mein Hindi’! The one reason why Hindi can never truly become our national language is that it is so far removed from spoken Hindustani as to render it a non starter. If I, as a learned person can’t follow the Hindi being used officially, what of the educationally challenged?  If at all Hindi or Hindustani has made any headway south of the Vindhyas, we have only Bollywood to thank, and not any government initiative.

Languages need to be inclusive in case they are to grow and flourish. English liberally opens its doors to words like chai (tea), charpoy, bandobust and so on – why can’t Hindi call an engineer an injiniyar? In the Army, we had a day in the week called the `Hindi Day’ where all official work was to be carried out in Hindi – my Head Clerk was a Keralaite, so you can imagine how THAT went...

With the number of languages and dialects in India in the hundreds, the already acute problem is further exacerbated by idiots making it an emotional issue. If our country can be India in English, Bharat in Hindi and Hindustan in Urdu, why can’t we have Bombay in English, Bambai in Hindi and Mumbai in Marathi??

All regional languages need to be junked as a first step – but that opens up a new line of thought – woh kissa phir kabhi!!

Spruced up and lookin' in me prime...

Ok, so this post is more by way of an olive branch to my son. Last night he complained that whenever he dressed up for a function, I `made a face’.  Two days ago, he had to attend a marriage reception at the Corinthian Club. Since the dress code was `formals’, he decided to don his black lounge suit. Quite naturally, I assumed that a crisp white shirt and a dark tie would complete the ensemble. There’s a reason, after all, why all formal dinners are called `black tie’ affairs, ne c’est pas?

The only concession I was willing to make towards `youth’ was that the tie could be midnight blue, or even at a stretch, a fiery red. What he chose to wear instead, to the accompaniment of loud cheers and encouragement from his sister, was a black shirt with a light coloured tie. The last time I had seen someone do that, I told them, was the erstwhile Hindi film villain Jeevan – in a movie where his name was actually `Snaky’!  So yes, I quite definitely did `make a face’!

There was a time not long ago when my opinion, indeed my approval, was sought on mundane affairs like matching ties (contrast with shirt), matching socks (match with trousers) and the like. Today, I am apparently `stuck in the sixties’ – so anything I recommend, the opposite is likely to be considered `cool’. But if your idea of sartorial elegance happens to be Shahrukh Khan, then I’m quite cool about being `uncool’..

One of the primary lessons we were taught about formal or elegant dressing was never EVER to wear a coat without a tie. Only lower division clerks in Maharashtra and under secretaries to the Govt of India in New Delhi did that. But lo and behold, you have grooms turn up for their own marriage receptions in a Saville Row suits – steel/charcoal grey, luxurious fabric elegantly tailored, but – woe betide me, sigh oh sigh - no tie!!

My daughter turns up wearing jeans that are threadbare at the knees, frayed at the hips and ragged at the ankles – and the pair cost a small fortune. It’s branded, she says, and quite the `in’ thing these days! I can only shake my head in dismay – her diploma in fashion design from one of Delhi’s more prestigious institutes - money well spent? Sigh..

Ok, so I once aped Dev Anand unabashedly – to the point of donning an ORANGE pair of trousers that he sported so rakishly in `Johnny Mera Naam’! And, like him, my collars never really knew when to stop.  My ties have given way to cravats and scarves – but would you know it, these are now considered GAY by the Gen Next??

The other day on TV, for a formal function, I saw an anchor (one of these totally deplorable upstarts) dressed in faded jeans, over which he wore a purple silk shirt and a pink tie knotted loosely, with the knot hanging down to the second shirt button. He hadn’t shaved, and his hair appeared gelled if not actually spiked! Reminded me of the story where a kid similarly dressed finds an oldie like me staring at him, and asks “What you lookin’ at Pops?”, and the man answers “Nothing really – was just thinking.. I once made love to a peacock long ago, and was wondering if you were my son!”

Sartorial elegance? Sharukh Khan? Seriously, have we lost the plot somewhere??

From Shahkot to Seattle - Part 2

My father loved Poona. So much that he insisted that after he died, his ashes be immersed not at Hardwar, not even at the nearby Alandi, but in the waters of Poona’s Mula-Mutha! His logic was simple. Whatever he had received in life, Poona had given to him (Jo kuch bhi mila,Poona se mila).

That is not to say he never yearned for the soil of his roots. He had left behind no family to speak of in Shahkot. His mother had passed away a few weeks before his first son (my elder brother Satish) was born. Later, he had brought his ailing father to Poona, where he too had breathed his last. He was an only child, and so had no blood links left with the village he had left behind.

But he did have a close friend, a Mr Jagannath Agarwal, who was elder to him by 3-4 years. They had been close, and continued to exchange letters (post cards, mostly) in Urdu. These were mainly reminisces of the days gone by, and spoke of a yearning to meet again – some day, somehow. My passion for Urdu poetry had driven me to learn the intricate Urdu script, and I followed this mail exchange with a great deal of bemusement. The closing line in the letters would invariably be  `Bhagwan ne chaha toh zaroor milenge’ (God willing, we shall definitely meet..).

An aside here. My interest in poetry had always been a source of considerable anguish for my father. He considered it an utter waste of time - time that could be more fruitfully utilised in the pursuit of less esoteric subjects like differential calculus and organic chemistry! But one Ghalib couplet he did share with me once.  The greatest gift God had bestowed upon him, he would say, was his ability to fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. He could sleep like a baby!  Things, however began to change in his later years when he developed primary hypertension. Maybe it was the drugs themselves, or just the idea that he now had to take medicines (something he had a terrible aversion to) for life, but sleep began to elude him. That’s when, in a moment of despair, he let slip Ghalib “Maut ka ek din moyeen hai, neend kyon raat bhar nahin aati?”

Throughout his life, he had been the epitome of good health. Over six feet tall, he was a towering personality in more ways than one. So when he fell ill on his 84^th birthday (7^th July, 1996), he - and all of us - dismissed the congestion he was feeling as nothing more than a seasonal bout of `sardi-zukhaam’.  As was the custom, we all called to wish him on his birthday, and were worried that he didn’t sound too well. Typically, he brushed aside all our concerns with a “I’m fine, it’s just a cold!” He hated being fussed over, and had always stubbornly refused to come and live with either of his sons.

By sheer providence, Satish (his favourite son) happened to be in Poona. He was actually scheduled to fly out the same morning, but somebody called to tell him that the flight had been cancelled, so he decided to stay on and spend Dad’s birthday with him.  (It later transpired that the flight had never been cancelled, so who made that fateful call, we will never know. Maybe it was just an extraordinary stroke of luck, or maybe it was my father’s karma, but for me, it remains a miracle I will always believe in). By the evening, my father began to sink, and around 5 pm, he passed away peacefully in his son’s arms – the son my mother had trekked all the way to Puran Bhagat’s well to conceive. It was a death so beautiful, he could not have dreamt of it himself.

The man we all thought was immortal had slipped away quietly and peacefully. An era had truly come to an end.

Going through my father’s effects after his death, we came across an old diary, where he had studiously noted the dates and timings of birth of all his grandchildren. On the first page, in his stylised Urdu were Iqbal’s immortal lines

Rehmat pe teri mere gunahon ko naaz hai

Banda hun, jaanta hun tu Bandanawaz hai..

Fast forward to 1998. I was posted at Chandimandir, and I decided to make a trip to Shahkot. As we were driving down from Jullundur, I fervently prayed that Mr Jagannath Agarwal was still alive – he ought to be touching 90, if anything! As we drove by, I almost missed Shahkot – from a sleepy, dusty village, it had metamorphosed into a tar and concrete township, and was now bustling with activity. But in all other respects, it was much the same. When I introduced myself to a shopkeeper as a Puri from Poona, the immediate response was `Oh, Banarsilal da put? Kee haal hai Bhai saab da?’ It was sad to inform them he was no more, and their regret was genuine. A son of the soil had passed away.

But thankfully, Jagannath Agarwal saab was still around. Well into his nineties, bent double with age, fading eyesight, and almost no hearing.  His sons, much older than me, took me to him, and were about to introduce me when he just raised his hand to silence them. He peered at me through thick glasses, and I saw an instant recognition light up in his eyes. I happen to bear a striking resemblance to my father, and he had immediately made the connection. He broke down completely, and was inconsolable. For the next half hour or so, it was a strange sight - two grown men, one ninety, one fifty just holding hands and sobbing away. 

To me, that trip was nothing short of a pilgrimage. Roots will always be roots. My sister and I stood in wonder outside the house where our father had been born and raised. The door had been painted a garish blue, and the structure had surely seen better days. But at one time it had surely been `home'. This was where it had all begun. How far we had come from that sleepy hamlet, and who knows what lay in store for the generations that follow us..

I looked up to the skies, and could see him smiling. Agar Bhagwan ne chaha toh zaroor milenge - CHECK!

   

From Shahkot to Seattle..

It is an ill wind, they say, that blows nobody any good. But this was no ill wind - it was a cool and gentle breeze, so typical of Poona in July that caressed his face as he stepped down on to the railway platform. Used, as he was, to the scorching summer winds of Punjab, he was delighted beyond words. He had found his home at last.

“Such a cool breeze in July,” he thought to himself, “I’m never leaving this place!

And so it came to be that the tall, dark and remarkably handsome youth from the dusty village of Shahkot in Punjab came to accept the salubrious Poona as his home – based, not on a job, or even a whim or a fancy, but on a gentle whiff of breeze. 

He barely had a few rupees in his pocket, and a wife and two young daughters in tow. From scratch, he set up building his and his family’s future in the town he had fallen instantly in love with. He got his daughters admitted to what was (and continues to be) the best girls’ school in town (St Anne’s), and started looking around for a livelihood.

If there was one hitch in his life, it was his wife’s health, and her inability to bear him a male offspring. Wracked with asthma, she suffered miscarriage after miscarriage, and the outlook seemed bleak. An oracle of sorts prophesised that as long as his mother was alive, he couldn’t be blessed with a son, because it was written in the old lady’s stars that she was destined never to set eyes on a grandson’s face (potay ka munh). 

Another suggested that his wife make the pilgrimage to Puran Bhagat’s well near Sialkot (now in Pakistan), and have a ritual bath there. This apparently guaranteed a male offspring. She did this, with her cousin in tow. 

Years later, and just a few weeks after the death of his mother, the man was finally blessed with a son!  Whether this proved the old oracle right, or the sacred waters of Puran Bhaghat’s `fertility well’ as efficacious we will never know. The boy was quickly followed by another girl, and then a second boy. The girl followed her sisters to St Anne’s, and the boys to St Vincent’s, just opposite. The man bought a small plot of land behind the school playing ground in Pudumjee Park, and continued the struggle to put his kids through school.

Just as he thought he and his wife had done their share of parenting, fate decided that they raise yet another child. By then, one of his daughters had delivered a baby girl, and had placed her at Pudumjee Park for a few weeks till she resigned from her job and  `sorted out’ her affairs. Those `few weeks’ lasted all of 29 years, and the little girl left P Park only after she got married! 

The grandchildren came in droves, followed by great grandchildren. I wonder if little Rohan, as he straps on his helmet and mounts his bicycle in far away Seattle, will ever realize the debt of gratitude he owes to that whiff of breeze that had caressed his great grandfather’s  face that July so long ago. Gentle as it was, it had transported the generations that followed from the mud huts of rural Punjab to the chrome and glass monoliths of Seattle and Chicago in the United States of America.

Such is life. Some decisions affect not only you, but effect paradigm shifts in generations to follow.

Had the man lived, he would have turned 100 this week. 

He was my father.