18th December. Alas, it seems we won't have a proper winter this time round at all! It became comfortable enough by mid-November, but even today the maximum has touched 26 celsius, while the minimum yesterday was barely 12-13. This can be called winter in Mumbai, Kolkata or Chennai maybe, but certainly not here.
I was re-visiting the memories of December 1989, when I was 26, exactly the age my daughter is now. More and more I love to make these mental comparisons. I had joined St. Xavier's School as a teacher the previous year, and helped very greatly to organise their silver jubilee celebration: they have airbrushed me out of their official memoirs, the idiots, imagining that that way they can actually erase history! In 1989, they were paying me a very modest salary, which was shored up just a little bit by the extra I was earning from private tuitions - many of my less gifted contemporaries were making considerably more then, and it would be more than a decade later that I would manage to draw ahead of them. But I was enjoying myself hugely. I was my own man, helping out with the family finances; we had just finished building (the first floor of-) our own new house, and that December, I floated the idea of taking some boys and colleagues on a school excursion. First time ever for our school. 'Who will take the responsibility?' asked Father Wavreil the headmaster, thrilled but wary. 'I will, of course,' I assured him, and so it was done. Even the railway booking was done through my father's journalistic connections. We went travelling for about a week, I seem to remember, visiting Hardwar, Hrishikesh, Lakshmanjhula, Dehradun and Mussoorie, staying and moving around very comfortably on just seven hundred rupees per head, which was even in those days a shoestring budget, and still managed to return a bit to every boy afterwards.
I remember we got off the return train early in the morning, and the headmaster was waiting for us. He took a suitcase from my hand, and as I shook hands with him, crying exultantly, 'Father, I did it!' He laughed like a boy and said, 'Yes, you said that you would do it and you did it!' (for the illiterate, that was an impromptu quote from Bernard Shaw's play, Pygmalion). If his successors can read and are reading this, I hope they feel ashamed to realize how far they have fallen, and just why I quit. This was a headmaster: I couldn't tolerate lesser creatures.
One reward was that some parents later came to see me and said, 'Sir, given the glowing reports we are getting from our sons, and the dirt-cheap way you managed to do it all, why don't you arrange a trip like that for us parents?' and another was that some of those boys (ICSE 1991) looked me up much later and declared, 'Sir, we have travelled much, far and wide, but never have we enjoyed a trip as much as that one!' It is a pity that I was such good friends with my senior colleagues like Uday Roy and Shanti Biswas in those days, and they have all found it preferable to forget me or badmouth me... I still wonder what they got out of it.
But Pupu, note well, I was still poor then. So you have time to make a solid career for yourself, see? All that matters is that you want to, you have faith in our Maker, and you are giving of your best. And remember, I did have lots of fun even though I was poor!
2 comments:
Today's temperature here. Max 10 and Min 0. Yes, zero.
I still have good memories of the silver jubilee celebrations.
I have not been on any school trip during my time, except a picnic at Kumarmangalam park in which you were there too. Anyway, I couldn't have afforded a trip to more distant places at that time even if I would have been given an opportunity. I have hardly been to many places in India for mainly pecuniary reasons. And, I will probably not see any of the places you have mentioned in this lifetime. I remember Father Wavreil and Father Watier very well. Personally, I did not like the PT teacher, so I am rather surprised to know that you did consider him to be a friend at one point. About the other teacher, well I am a bit surprised but given how much people change, it is probably nothing too surprizing. I visited our old school twice after I started working abroad. And, I was turned away both times because I did not have an appointment. So, I have decided not to go back again.
Shouldn’t compare but there are a few experiences of my own holding similar footprints. I have made several trips with my parents. However, the one through Mussoorie, Kedarnath, Badrinath, and Gangotri left the deepest mark on the memory. Why was it special? Honest answer, “I do not know”. There are some possible reasons other than the auspicious natural beauty. I was in class 8 and my father was recovering from a massive surgery. The surgery was a cure for something he had been suffering for more than 7 years. He had restrictions for a year on movement. Let alone the 14km walk or horse ride to Kedarnath (back in 2003, roads were a lot more challenging than today) on the 7th month. Yet he took the challenge, relying on my mother and me to do the needful if emergencies were to happen. We were there 7 days before a seasonal closure with hardly any dharmshalas to eat and spend the night. The overnight temperature was below -7C (feels like a joke now as I deal with -50C but back then it was a mark of achievent). The number of tourists was hardly 20 and even then, there was news of people falling sick from the oxygen crisis for altitude. Nothing could threaten the fun, rather made things interesting. Today when I ask my father why he picked that season with such a high health risk, all he says is, “no time better.” Out of too many experiences on that trip, one more needs a mention. My father always picked the not-so-legal timing (we would be on road after sunset) to travel between stations. His reasoning is, "less human pollution and more Natural beauty". Well, Natural beauty is not always as safe as we imagine it. We had a close encounter (within a couple of feet) with a baby tiger at Rudra Prayag and paused to see the untimely guests. Luckily, we were inside the car.
My off-late realizations are that money is inversely proportional to the fun part of life. Building a castle in the air is always better than stepping into one. Not encouraging hunger, but I have lived happier days when I could only smell food behind restaurants because I could not afford to walk in. In memory of the ticking clock, all I can think of
“this world is not my home, I am just passing through
the treasures are held up somewhere beyond the blue”
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