The Auctioneer

One of the features of my School & College days’ Lower Bazar, Shimla was the presence of a self styled auctioneer.His name was Ganesha or more precisely Ganesa as people would call him. During day time he could be seen holding mostly a wrist watch and sometimes a transistor radio set belonging to someone who was willing to dispose it off and also stood along side.Perhaps it was the need for money which drove people to auction off their belongings.Cash was not so common those days as it is today. Ganesha would call out loud about the changing amount of bid or auction, in between repeating the make of the watch or transistor.Both were shown to be in running condition or who would go for ! Ganesha would charge his commission when the deal was struck. When asked about the guarantee or warranty of the watch or the transistor radio, Ganesa was candid enough to state that guarantee was only up to Taar Ghar, i.e. CTO, just a 5-7 minute walking distance from the scene of auction. Still there were buyers of the object.

अभिनेता राजकुमार

"चिनॉय सेठ, जिनके घर शीशे के बने होते हैं वो दूसरों पर पत्थर नहीं फेंकते"

अभिनेता स्व. राज कुमार  का ज़िक्र आते ही   फिल्मों  में उनके द्वारा  बोले गए  संवाद  जेहन में  उभर आते हैं .  नाम और तबीयत  दोनो  से राज कुमार !

स्कूल में कुछ समय के लिए हमारे एक गणित  के अध्यापक थे, बहुत अच्छा पढ़ाते थे , पर किसी  लड़के का ‘हम’ बोलना उन्हें गवारा नहीं था । किसी बात के जवाब में कोई  ‘हम’ बोला नहीं कि शामत आई । ‘तुम कोई राजा महाराजा हो जो अपने आप को हम बोलते हो’ डंडे की मार के साथ यही सुनने को मिलता ।

आज सोचता हूँ कि यदि अध्यापक महोदय राजा महाराजा की जगह  राजकुमार कहते  तो भी बात जच जाती । अभिनेता राजकुमार के मुंह से ‘हम’ सुनना बहुत अच्छा लगता था, यथा :

"हम तुम्हें मारेंगे और जरूर मारेंगे लेकिन वह वक्त भी हमारा होगा, बंदूक भी हमारी होगी और गोली भी हमारी होगी"

आज इन्हीं राजकुमार साहब की जयंती है .

श्रद्धांजलि !

मोहिदीन

मोहिदीन तुम बहुत याद आते हो

और तुम्हारा हमेशा मुस्कराता चेहरा

 और तुम्हारा भाई  सुल्तान भी ,

 कितना खयाल रखते थे तुम

 कि बाबू ( मेरे पिता ) को कहीं दिक्कत न हो,

 मौसम का मिजाज़ एकाएक बदलने और

 अचानक भारी बर्फ पड़ने से

 अचानक  दो  मन कोयला पीठ पर उठा कर आ धमकते थे तुम

  एक बार तो 2-3 फुट बर्फ के बीच  पहुंचाई थी

 तुमने दो बोरियाँ मन- मन की,

 याद आती है मुझे अपनी माँ भी

 खूब तेज़ जलती अंगीठी  कर दी थी

तुम दोनों के हवाले

 और चाय नाश्ता सा भी  परोसा था कुछ

 नाम गाँव पूछने की ज़रूरत न  तुम्हें पड़ी थी  न हमें न तुम्हें

 बस इंसानियत का  रिश्ता था ,

 जो समय के साथ और गहराया था

यों मेरे शहर का मिजाज़ ज़्यादा बदला नहीं है

फिर भी कुछ तो बदला है

पर  तुम, तुम थे

और वो वक़्त , वक़्त  !

Jugaad or Inventiveness

No one is more inventive and ‘jugaadu’ than school students. Every school tries to instill and enforce discipline among the students in different ways like spanking, slapping and reprimanding. Going back to my school days, there was another kind of indiscipline indulged in by students. It was moving about in the premises , taking a ‘break’ from the class. The teachers were under instructions to stop any student and inquire from him as to why he was loitering about. But then students had to answer the call of nature at least once in a day , for which it was devised to have a ‘pass’ in every class , which was either a piece of wood or of card board with the words ‘PASS’ and the name of class and section inscribed on it in bold letters with ink. This way only one student at a time could go out for the purpose given before.But then boys are boys , and there is no reining them in. It was alright as far as there was a teacher in the class as one student at a time could go for a little while by taking the ‘pass’ .Our contemporary Edisons and Newtons, found a way out in case there was a vacant period . There was not one but many passes transferring hands to be shown when required.With this jugaad more than one student had the ‘break’ with the farzi pass in his pocket.

Any doubts about what I said in the beginning ?

Murphy Boy

Friends of my generation, who had come of age in seventies and eighties, may recollect Murphy Boy, the iconic picture of a tiny cherubic baby adorning the print media with full page ads , when around Diwali, the company would display models of radio sets and Transistor Radio sets for prospective buyers to choose from. Rumours were afloat that the baby had actually died and the ad carrying his picture was also a commemorative one in this sense.The baby with all that childlike charm was cynosure of all eyes rather than the product being advertised . I felt sorry for the child as I had felt in my school days for Lucy Gray the subject of Wordsworth’s famous poem. It is stated to be true that the baby girl who was used as a model for Murphy products in the beginning had died. More than two decades passed with me carrying the sad episode in my subconscious mind. It was a great relief some three years back in 2012 when there were news appearing in the media that the Murphy Boy who had modeled in the seventies and eighties is none other than Dr. Kagyur Tulku Rinpoche, who happens to be the husband of Mandakini , heroine of the Raj Kapur directed film ‘ Ram Teri Ganga Maili‘. The picture that we saw in ads was taken at Manali when Dr. Kagyur Tulku Rinpoche was just three year old and his appearance then bore striking resemblance to the original baby girl who had modeled for Murphy.

रामधारी सिंह दिनकर

राष्ट्रकवि स्व. रामधारी सिंह दिनकर की आज जयंती है । दिनकर जी के नाम से परिचय स्कूल के जमाने में हुआ जब पाठ्यक्रम में हिमालय पर उनकी एक कविता पढ़ी । कुछ पंक्तियाँ अब भी याद हैं , यथा :
मेरे नगपति मेरे विशाल’
साकार दिव्य गौरव विराट,
मेरी जननी के हिम किरीट,
मेरी माता के दिव्य भाल ........

वीर रस और शृंगार रस जैसी परस्पर विरोधी काव्य शैली में ‘कुरुक्षेत्र’ और ‘उर्वशी’ जैसी अनूठी व अद्वितीय काव्य रचनाओं का सृजन कर दिनकर जी ने अपनी प्रतिभा का लोहा मनवाया है। हुंकार,रश्मिरथी, परशुराम की प्रतीक्षा जैसी काव्य रचनाएं तो की ही, इसके अतिरिक्त ‘संस्कृति के चार अध्याय’ नामक पुस्तक पर उन्हें साहित्य अकादमी पुरस्कार भी मिला । ‘उर्वशी’ के लिए भारतीय ज्ञानपीठ पुरस्कार से सम्मानित हुए तथा पद्म विभूषण भी मिला । उनकी कविताओं की कुछ बानगी इस प्रकार है :

‘असल में हम कवि नहीं शोक की संतान हैं ............’

‘रे रोक युधिष्ठिर को न यहाँ, जाने दे उनको स्वर्ग धीर ,
पर फिरा हमें गांडीव गदा, लौटा दे अर्जुन भीम वीर.......’

‘मर्त्य मानव की विजय का तूर्य हूँ मैं,
उर्वशी अपने समय का सूर्य हूँ मैं ...........’

‘क्षमा शोभती उस भुजंग को, जिसके पास गरल हो; उसको क्या जो दन्तहीन, विषहीन, विनीत, सरल हो....’

हिन्दी साहित्य के इस पुरोधा को हमारी विनम्र श्रद्धांजलि !

Dhobi

A very conspicuous presence in our day to day life during my growing years was that of the Dhobi. In urban households dhobi would mark his presence once in a week in the morning whwn he would deliver the washed clothes and collect the dirty ones to be washed by him and delivered next week . The practice was followed like a ritual. Every household had a family dhobi who once engaged would continue for years till the client changed his place of residence or in case of a Government employee, transfer took him away to some other station. A dhobi was conspicuous and easily recognizable by his white kurta, white dhoti and jutties with upturned toe, always carrying a bundleor a ‘gathri’ of clothes on his back. The linen clothes that were given to him for washing were white bed sheets, white bed covers , quilt covers and last but not the least white cotton shirts , an essential part of school uniform and a preferred colour of office going people. In our locality, dhobis used to come from dhobighat , just on the fringe of famous Annadale ground , just below it. The reason behind the choice of place by dhobis was plenty of water available in a khud flowing nearby and ample sunshine from morning till evening, which helped the washed linen dry quickly.The clothes were washed in washing soda and collar of shirts were starched. From some vantage point linen drying in the sun could be seen from a distance.Since most of the linen or the clothes were white , there was every chance of getting these mixed up , but to avoid this , dhobi would put a separate identification mark in indelible ink on the linen of a particular household . There is an idiom –to wash your dirty linen in public- but yes dirty linen was literally washed and left to dry in public . The dhobi whose services we continued to avail for years was one Bhagwati Prasad. My father used to call him baretha (बरेठा ). I did not know the meaning of this word until I found out from the google that it is a synonym for dhobi. But then my late father possessed a vast vocabulary of such like terms.
Dhobis almost always walked in a group of three or four, as talking while walking was the best way of fighting fatigue caused by steep ascent from Annadale right up to the circular road , then called the cart road.
All dhobis were seen together on the day next to Holi when they would celebrate Hola and take a procession , visibly drunk , rejoicing all the way .

It is decades since I encountered one of their ilk, as most of the washing is done at home , thanks to washing machines available in every household.