Basanta Bouri...it was on a branch and I was aiming my phone camera and ruing the lack of proper zoom when it took wings and posed on the window-ledge for 50 seconds.

10-20 rupaya ki kahani

“Madam, 10-20 rupaya zyada doge toh kya fark padega?”

This was the auto guy asking for Rs. 100 instead of the usual Rs. 80 to take me from Jangpura B to my office at Gole Market yesterday. I did what I do everyday. I told him that the “meter” rate is Rs. 74; that I am losing 6 rupees per trip anyway because no one returns the change; and that I don’t want to pay extra for an everyday destination.

As the auto travelled along Mathura road, I was thinking of the times when the value of 10-20 rupaya was much more for me.

I never got a specific amount of pocket money in college. Mom used to give bus fare and extra 10 rupees for other expenses at the beginning of week. I knew I am expected to manage 3-4 days with that. Middle Class families had no money to waste at that time. But things were cheaper. The bus fare from Sealdah station to college was one rupee and on some days, I used to save it by walking all the way. It was not much for a 17-year-old and there were many things to observe along the route. I was never good with finances, though. I will save 10 rupees after a lot of efforts and on an impulse spend it on my favourite Sportstar magazine (is it still published?) or on a movie.

The first movie I saw with college friends was “Baby’s Day Out”. It was raining since morning and a few professors did not turn up. The city had a cloudy sky and a faded yellowish glow which brings out that typical Calcutta-type feeling of nostalgia. Along with two of my friends, I walked to one of the cinema halls in nearby Esplanade (either New Empire or Globe, I don’t remember) . However, there was a House-full board.

One of the friends then spotted a “blacker” muttering “10 ka 20/10 ka 20”. (We didn’t give much thought to the moral aspect of buying from blackers at that time. They were just an indicator of the popularity of a particular film. With the advent of multiplexes, blackers have disappeared. 

We pooled nearly all of our money but were still six rupees short. We told the guy that this is all we have. He looked at our eager faces, nearly smiled, and said “okay”.

After thoroughly enjoying the movie (I still see it every time I find it on TV), we headed home amid more rains. A Sealdah-bound bus picked us up and then it was the time to collect all the coins in our purse, mostly of 10 and 20 paisa. After we poured Rs 3 in coins on his palm, the conductor, for some strange reason, did not look very happy.

That was 1994. Cut to 1999. I was going to Kolkata GPO to post my application for the post of a trainee journalist in PTI. They had asked for a Rs. 200 postal order. I was, however, not aware of the fact that 10 per cent fee is also charged for it. And I realized, to my horror, that I have only Rs. 208 and that the last date is so near that if I cannot post the application today, it won’t reach Delhi on time.

So I went nearly five kms back to Sealdah, knocked at a friend's door in Suri Lane and took a 20-rupee loan. I got that job. And life took a turn.

Hota hai jee, 20 rupaya mein bhi bohot kuchh hota hai

A train journey and a mighty river

Nowadays, I am suffering from sleep disorder. Life is like that! When I was younger, I could have slept for long hours, but needed to get up and run to the office for the 8 am shift. Now, when I can actually devote some more time for sleep, I find myself awake at 4 am nearly every day.

In the early hours, when the world is eerily silent, the sound that gives me some relief is that of the whistle of trains passing by the nearby Nizamuddin railway station. I try to imagine the scene inside the train. Maybe a cranky child; maybe a mother who has taken half the space she requires so that she can accommodate the kid in her bunk, maybe a young lad who has forgotten to take off his earphone; maybe an old unclejee whose nose is emanating the noise of a printing machine.

It also brings back childhood memories – of walking with my father to Sodepur railway station near my home sometimes in the afternoon for “train dekha”. We used to be there on the railway over-bridge for half an hour or so. The suburban (we call them ‘local’) trains would travel slowly below the bridge, like giant pythons, letting me count the number of compartments with ease. The Express trains would rush through. I wished to travel in an Express train.

My first long distance train journey was in 1984 -- from Howrah to my mom's parental home in Guwahati -- in Kamrup Express. We were paying the visit because my grandmother had expired, but the seven-year old me was oblivious to the solemnity of the situation. I was excited and happy; happy to see miles and miles of green paddy fields, happy to furtively look at the food basket that contained ‘luchi’ and ‘aloo bhaji’; happy to read the names of unheard-of stations (I remember I found the name Barpeta in Assam quite amusing because in Bengali it meant “beat up the groom”. I don’t know the Assamese meaning). And then, my happiness turned to awe as we reached near our destination and I saw the river Brahmaputra. It was grand. It was beyond the scope of my imagination. My mom used to sing an old Assamese song by Bhupen Hazarika – “লুইতৰ পাৰ দুটি/জিলিকি উঠিব ৰাতি/জ্বলি শত দেৱালীৰ বন্তি/হাঁহিব কাতিৰে মাহটি”. In the month of Kartik, hundreds of lamps will light up the banks of Luit (Luit/Lohit, as the Assamese call it), glittering like a smile (apologies for any mistake in translation). But I could not see the “paar” or the banks of the river, it was so huge. That was the most significant moment of my first Express train travel.

P.S.: Mom can still sing that song and remembers it in full. I found the lyrics (with minor variation; আহিব in place of হাঁহিব) via Google but it is not there in YouTube.

A Song for Mr. Biswas

Listening to songs of Rabindranath Tagore was as common an activity as eating or sleeping in most middle-class Bengali households in my childhood. We didn't have a tape recorder and radio was the main medium through which I had the first experience of those songs, the memories of which will stay with me throughout my life. My sisters and mom used to listen to radio programmes everyday and debate endlessly about the singing styles of noted Rabindrasangeet exponents of that time. But whenever I recollect those days, I remember the voice of an unknown street singer. His name was Gurupada Biswas. 

Carrying a harmonium tied with a thick cloth string and wearing a clean shirt and dhoti, Mr. Biswas, a middle-aged man, used to come to our housing society and go from one flat to another, singing Tagore songs. He would sit on the window-shelf between our door and that of our neighbour and his deep voice will echo in the stairs. I will tell my mom "siri gayak esechhe" (the staircase singer has come) and run to open the door. Mom will request him to sing her favourite songs. He will sing them most of the times but will refuse if he was not sure about the words of a particular song. "One should be very careful about the lyrics of Rabindrasangeet," he will say. Mom will give him some money afterwards, while the neighbours will offer a bowl of uncooked rice. This was a regular occurrence for years, till the day he suddenly stopped coming.

I don't know whether Mr. Biswas is still alive. If I see and hear him again someday, I will record a video of him and upload in Facebook and he will be an instant internet sensation. Or maybe not. Maybe he will just say: "ami je gaan geyechhilem, mone rekho" (remember the song I had sung)

Some things never change

Every time I return home, I see so many things have changed. 

Childhood playmates have shifted to other places, the once-bustling grounds in our housing society where we played cricket or 'lame-man' now host gleaming lonely cars, the partial view of sunset and coconut trees seen from the west-side windows of our flat (I used to imagine Goa is just behind it) is now blocked by tall buildings. 

But the butterflies are still there. Yellow, white, brown with white dots. The only difference is that when I was a child, I used to run after them brandishing my badminton racket but failed to catch them and now I aim at them with my feeble phone camera and fail to capture them.

Photographic Memory-Delightful Delhi