The 25th of June

All channels are talking of June 25, 1983… The day when India won the Prudential cup - the cricket world cup. And my class e-group had a lot of fun talking about “where were you on that day?”…

And then someone asked, about the same date, in a different year:

“How many of us remember June 25th 1975? And what were you doing then?”…

One of my class fellows, NR, of Kerala, guessed right, when he replied “Emergency?”

Yes, that was the day when the Indira Gandhi Government declared a state of Emergency in India.

Civil liberties were suspended, opposition leaders jailed, press freedom suspended, judicial freedom curtailed…

And heres what Joseph remembers of that day… I quote from his mail…

“emergency i wont forget !

I just about did not make it into RECT ( you lucky devils !) was in the tail-ender batch in August - not enough marks obviously !

i was visiting my school one day in July and had hung around till 7:00 pm with some pals. my close pals had all left by then to BITS, JIPMER, etc. I had applied only to RECT & a hurried one to REC Calicut. i was sh*7$ng in my pants ( damn that silly mistake from over-confidence - old problem , still with me - for maths in CBSE that knocked off 10 marks in a really simple question !!)

As i waited for a bus back it was getting dark. Then i heard this rumble of an overloaded old jeep spewing smoke trundling up the steep road as police men in helmets stood up at the back & were also packed into it. I was grinning at the sight sitting on a culvert, as it passed me. I also had this CBSE smirk for all local offices & machinery.

I guess it must have pissed off the Sub Inspector coz the jeep that passed me stopped about 20 meters away and the athletic police men in helmets & really heavy boots that went KATAK, KATAK, PACHAK, KATAK ran towards me shouting ” come here u dog!’

I was in shock as 3 of them grabbed me, bend my hand behind me and push me to the ground, pulled me up, pushed me to the jeep and shoved me in !

inside a sub inspector turned around bored and asked me what are you doing here?

F*&$ man - i had not even started shaving and the F-&^%$-R thought i was some criminal??

i cud not speak in malayalam well then as the Refinery school did not have a great malloo crowd and neither were we taught malayalam . So i spoke in english and that saved me !! The SI then had to respond in English to save his face in front of his goons. I was surprised that i was showing that i was pissed though i was scared & intimidated like hell with these KATAK KATAK KATAK boots of these cops.

I asked him - what did i do? why are you doing this to me? i just went to my school!

He asked what school ? I explained. Then he said -’ look its Emergency- do u understand? dont hang around here on the roads after 6:00. OK? Now go home !!’

They then almost chucked me out of the jeep and puttered on as the guys standing at the back glared at me & i back !

So - how will i forget the Emergency , 1975 and RECT & you F-&^#@-S ?!!

KATAK, PACHAK, KATAK, PACHAK

enna?

NR

**

So, where were you on June 25th?

Zen and the art of buying a car - 5

The final run for me was between Toyota Corolla and Honda City.

Both are good cars.

The traffic of my mind went somewhat like this:

Compared to a City, Corolla is 10 cms or so wider in the back seat. Can seat three comfortably. Has more power. Seems a better brand promise. It also has better road clearance than City. City, when loaded, sometimes scrapes the top of taller speed-breakers.

But City gives better mileage. Is more compact, and therefore more suitable for metro traffic. 

And given the price range I was looking for, the comparison was between the upper end, fully loaded Honda City versus the Entry Model, not so loaded Toyota Corolla. And in terms of interiors, the City scored better in this model comparison. And in terms of exterior styling, Corolla, to my mind, is not all that cool. Price of City was less by 20% or more. And I remembered Krishna81’s advise about a cap on the budget.

And so, although my heart was for a Toyota, my head finally voted for the Honda City, and my heart followed as well.

Phew! That was close!

And now came the financing part.

Used-car Krishna wanted to broker a deal with a hotshot multinational bank. Whereas my local Indian public sector bank was also calling me. Overseas bank was giving a better rate, and would come to my place with all paper work needed. But the PSU Bank seemed friendlier, and promised to clear the application in three days flat. Overseas bank in question is not a stranger to using strong arm tactics…So I decided to try the PSU.

Enter PSU Krishna.

“Welcome Sir! We will clear your loan in two days, Sir. You just come for fifteen minutes, Sir. All will be ready. No complications Sir! No Post-dated cheques and all. All very simple”…Service with a smile.

And when I called for that promised service – “Sir! Tomorrow our new premises being inaugurated. GM is coming. You are also welcome Sir! Customer first! But I will be fully busy. You can come later sir?”

And when I landed there, nothing was ready. But with a bit of pushing and patience, things moved. Except that they requested me to go to a stationery shop to buy Form 20, 21, 29, 30 etc, two copies each. So I did that. Finally paper work was done from my side.

“Loan cheque will be ready tomorrow evening, Sir.”.

And so I called them next evening. Things hadn’t moved. No fault of theirs.

“Sir! This computer Sir! New core banking system inaugurated two weeks ago! No proper training at all Sir! They came two years ago and gave training for one day only! And system has come two years later! Our staff has also changed! Manual system means I would have given you a cheque in fifteen minutes. Now, sir, with core banking, it is taking some time. We are on it. I will ensure that you have the cheque before EOD today, rest assured” said PSU Krishna.

Come EOD, I called him…”We are on the job, Sir. System bottlenecks. We are progressing, step by step…step by step…We will do it”.

And then I said, I will come personally and wait in the bank.

“Please, no sir! How will it help, Sir? System is like traffic jam. How can your coming help, Sir? I only will feel more embarrassed. Pukka, by tomorrow, it will be done Sir…”

And  true to the word, by tomorrow, it was done! Hurrah!

And so, Chalti ka naam gaadi! Thank you, Krishna81!

Zen and the art of buying a car - 4

When people ask me what I do, I usually tell them that I am a software engineer at heart. And then there is usually a moment of timelessness, as we respectively see who blinks first.  I am sure that this predicament is not mine alone, and that I have a whole tribe of my own out there, who too must be struggling to convey what exactly they do - how they add value to the world that they are robbing. 

And then sometime ago, I attended a software engineering conference, where a very respected software engineer, several years my senior in the field, and a million times more accomplished, famous and wealthier, had this to say - “When people ask me what I do for a living, I have now got a proper reply. Here it is. I tell them - ‘My grandfather was a horse-thief, my father was a used-car dealer, and I, am a software engineer.’ “

So, coming back to my car chronicle, I had this old car to sell, and new car to buy.

Enter - Used-car dealer Krishna!

For the sake of brevity, lets call him Used-car Krishna! Here was a pure, unadulterated Krishna!

He purred like as if he had nothing but my highest interest in his heart. He would take care of the whole thing. Sell the old car. Show me a range of new cars. Get me the best prices. Arrange any finance I need. And also fill my refrigerator up, as a freebie. All at no extra cost. Their dealership had been serving the society for more than five decades now. And this used-car Krishna who was now my trusted-advisor was a second or third generation person from that family of Used-car  Krishnas!

Krishna asked me how many kilometers my current car has done. 60 K, said I. He then examined the papers of my current car, his face taking on the look of Don Bradman facing a ball, and deciding how best to hit it for a six. He then put on his most trust-inspiring expression and gave me four options, one straight, and three crooked. We could go for the straight option of course, except that I would not get as good a  price. I would be foregoing some 20 or 30K. I chose to go straight. And then he was so quick on the kill that he was willing to sign a cheque straightaway, which made me wonder if I had been made a lemon.

And then he smoothly switched gears, and got onto discussing how he could help with arranging finance for my new car purchase. He sang such a melodious number! I came away thinking that I could be getting a fascinating deal where I had to pay just 6 % interest.

And before I could say Henry-Ford, Used-car Krishna had landed in my house in the evening. He brought along some snake-oil salesmen from a new car dealer, and two new cars (one purposely made to look dull compared to the other, higher priced option). He also brought along a finance man, who he said would meet me next day, with all paper work done, and a few signatures from me on the cross marks on the forms, well the loan would be done, and the new car could be mine!

But being a software engineer, I am trained to do V & V - verification and validation. And so I went to my Accountant Krishna and asked him about financing options, and told him the deal offered by Used-car Krishna.

Accountant Krishna had recently purchased a new car himself and so was fresh with battle wounds. About the deal offered by Used-car Krishna, he lifted an eyebrow and hid a smirk, and asked me a few questions on the detailed terms, for which I had no answers. He wanted to know how the loan offering was structured. Interest on diminishing balance or not, cut off to the day or month, how the repayment EMI was accounted for, how  the loading of principal and interest was divided over time, whether there was a penalty for pre-closure etc.  Seeing me bewildered, he gave me a small lecture on hidden costs in such deals.

And then he told me about the discounts that could be expected. He advised me that I should break up the transaction completely, so that I did not let the banker, the Used-car dealer, the new car dealer, the insurer, and the accessories suppliers, to gang up as one front. I should deal with each separately, look them in the eye, and get a better deal from each of them, individually.

And to think that I had been thinking that this was a simple straight-through-processing type done deal. Ho hum!

                                         - To be continued -

Zen and the art of buying a car - 3

Krishna81 had his foot on the pedal when God took the key off his car. This was one evening last month, at Bangalore. In his office.

He was rushed to a hospital, and I and my better half took the early morning flight next morning to Bangalore. The cab sent by the travel agency was a Toyota Corolla. We rushed to the hospital. Nice, new hospital, on the way to the new airport. No crowds. Excellent facilities. Polite doctors. Efficient service. Bright ambience. All that Krishna81 would have liked. I suspect he was gone, but his body was still struggling in the ICU. The ailment was diagnosed as a brain hemorrhage and they were taking one more CT Scan when we walked in to the hospital.

Afternoon, around 1:30 pm, when I was standing outside the ICU, the vital signs in his body ceased. It was the holy day of Tai-Poosham. He had been absorbed in the radiance of his Master, Skanda Ramana.

We cremated him the next day.

The day after, I consigned a portion of his ashes in a place where three holy rivers meet, the Kaveri Sangama in Srirangapattinam. The drive from Bangalore to the Kaveri Sangama takes little less than  two hours. We went in the Toyota Corolla cab. A beautiful car. Cabbie Krishna had bought this second-hand, when it had done some 60000 kms. He told me that the quality was quite superb. No problems to talk about. And the car did some 9 kms per liter in the city and around 11 or 12 on the highways.

I got back to Chennai for a couple of days, and then flew back to Bangalore for the final rites.

The cab receiving me this time, was a Toyota Innova. Ribbon and all…It was a brand new cab. Cabbie Krishna told me that this was the first trip of the cab.

What a lovely car. The inside is to be seen to be believed. Business Class luxury. Seven people can sit comfortably. No need to elbow each other. Space. Lots of it.

But is it a personal car? Looks too big for a personal car. Looks quite like the engine of one of the Japanese superfast trains, detached from the coaches (kind of looks like a first part with second part missing). A long machine. But the fact is that it is only as long as the sedan, Toyota Corolla. It just looks longer.

Cabbie Krishna was all praise for the Innova. I asked him all sorts of questions, but net-net, he gave a big thumbs-up for the machine.

Krishna81 had made a date with me a few weeks before he passed on. He wanted me to take him in my car, to Tiruvannamalai on Feb 2^nd, from Chennai. And I had agreed. He booked a room for our stay there. And now he was no more. But then, on the very  date that he had chosen, I had the duty and privilege of carrying a portion of his ashes to Tiruvannamalai! Oh the ways of Krishna!

Tiruvannamalai is around five hours drive from Bangalore. This time, I went with a friend of mine, in his car. A Honda City.

My friend had clocked around 80 thousand kms in his car.  But the car was none the worse for it. We cruised on our way from Bangalore, leaving at around 6 AM or so, and stopped for a quick breakfast at Hosur. The first half of the route was on the highway and so the going was real smooth. And then you take off to the right and the roads start going back in time, but they are not bad. There was one stretch of a few kms that was bad. The car took the rough with the smooth. When we were some twenty kms of so from Tiruvannamalai, and doing a steady 110 Kmph, a Hyundai Getz overtook us at quite a clip. There was a whole family in the car. The driver must have been doing 130 kmph or so, when a few cows came charging on to the road, right in front of the car. And there, ahead of us, we saw the Getz brake. Fumes rose from the road as the driver stepped on the brakes. But wonder of wonders, the car braked beautifully, no swerving, no skidding…The cows survived. The family survived. The car survived. Good car, good driver, great brakes…

We reached Tiruvannamalai before 11 AM, with Krishna81 traveling with us in the Honda City. I consigned his ashes in the holy waters of one of the sacred tanks at the foothills of Arunachala, and then my friend and I checked into the room at Sri Ramanashramam that Krishna81 had booked. After spending some time there, we left back for Bangalore at around 3 PM, and reached by 8 PM.

Overall: It was a dream of a drive. Smooth as silk. Ten hours on the road and no muscle ache or stiffness to talk about. And the car had given some 17 kms or so per liter of petrol.

And so it was, that within the customary thirteen days rites that were consequent to the demise of Krishna81, I was given a good experience of three cars that were all on my shortlist. Thanks to Krishna81!

Meanwhile, back home in Chennai, my old Diesel awaited to be sold.

                                                            - To be continued -

Zen and the art of buying a car - 2

Krishna came in many forms to counsel me on the art of buying a car.  

There was a Chevrolet Tavera cab that I chanced to hire one day, and I thought I’d check if that Big-mass-of-engineering could fit into the parking area in my home. For if the Tavera could fit, so would a Scorpio or an Innova. And so I asked the cab driver, who was actually Krishna, to try and park in that space, and I found that he could.

And as Cabbie Krishna chatted with me, he realized that I seemed to be leaning towards buying a Scorpio, and he BUTted in straightaway. “Sir, car is good sir. No doubt sir. But Sir, Scorpio used mostly by flag-people sir…not by family type people sir…you yourself think sir…”, said he…and I say, he was quite right. Most of the Scorpios seem to be flag bearing, like chariots out of Mahabharata war. I pictured Krishna saying to me, “Yonder, you see that dazzling chariot Arjuna, with a white top, and a flag bearing the picture of a Cobra…That is the car of the mighty warrior Duryodhana…And that one, that glorious silver chariot, with the flag having a palm tree…That is the car of the greatest of warriors, Bhishma Pitamaha…And that there…” etc.

And I  pictured my Scorpio with a flag bearing the mighty ape…

How about a Toyota Innova then?

Cabbie Krishna approved. “Excellent option, sir” he said, breathing easier, and then went his way, for he had other fares to handle.

Krishna also came in the form of a dear well wisher of mine, a family elder, who was all of eighty one years young. Lets call him Krishna81. Now Krishna81 was quite a youth at heart, wore bright clothes, and always turned out pretty tip-top. He was quite a gizmo enthusiast as well, and so did a lot of research on my behalf and would call me every other day and advice me on this car and that. He was worried that I may put down my weapons, and opt to continue with my current diesel dodderer. And that he said would be the absolutely wrong thing to do. “What for has God given you a decent income? You should know how to put it to proper use…” he advised. And then again, he was worried that I may decide to dive deeper than needed, and he cautioned - “No! Don’t be tempted to spend that few dollars more. Stick to your budget and get the best  you can get for that. And be prepared to sell, three years down the line… and buy a new one… Don’t be over-attached to any car and hold on to it for more than three years… Cars are just getting better and better! A whole new world is upon us now! You should know how to enjoy!” he told me…

And as I dilly-dallied, hummed-and-hawed, he kind of gave up on me, and went ahead and booked a new car for himself! A Skoda! He chose a certain model, went to the dealership, and decided on a higher model, went across to a bank, negotiated a good loan, and signed the papers, all in one day. And he called me and told me “You are the first person I am telling this to. I have just booked a Skoda. It is a beauty. I have got a decent deal from the bank. Am not worried too much about servicing the loan. Interest rate is ok. Market is not bad, and I have some money in Mutual Funds which will give me returns that are much higher than the loan interest rate…”

Vettu onnu, tundu rendu - as they say in Tamil. One swift strike of the sword, and cut into two pieces! Krishna81 had showed me how a war has to be fought!

But…

Sadly, Krishna81 did not live to enjoy his new car. A week later, God recalled him from this earth. But he had shown me the way, and continued to show me the way in mysterious ways…As we shall see…

                                                              …To be continued….

Zen and the art of buying a car - 1

To buy a car in India in these times is a case study fit for analysis using the rules of Bhagavad Gita. Looking at the formidable array of options, each of which is driven by armed salesmen gunning for you, is to stare in the face of battle, with hope fast turning into deep despair. One almost feels like putting down one’s weapons, and saying “Krishna! Why do I need a new car? Why cant I put up with my old diesel dodderer? Fie on the devil of desire! Fie on vanity! No, I shall not go for a new car!”…

Then the Master would speak: “Be not a nincompoop, my friend, for this does not befit you. Abandon this weak-heartedness and arise! You feel anxious for that which should cause no anxiety! Forge ahead in the road of life! Evaluate your options! Make your choice! Go!”…

It was in this kind of mood, that I managed to lift my head to evaluate options. My four year old Diesel was on its last wheels…suffering variously from cough, arthritis, gas and many more diseases…the fact that almost all of its parts had been transplanted in the last few years didn’t seem to help either…It ran all right…but gave no commitment…

And so a new car it had to be, and I walked into the battlefield.

The choices…I start with a look at sedans…First stop Maruti…Want to look at the new SX4…”Men! They are back!” scream three pretty girls in the Ad for SX4. A real good looking car. Theatre seats in the back, raised above the front seat…Lots of pluses, but few “buts”…But “one”, fuel efficiency…But “two”, back seat design…Meant for seating two comfortably. But the third will have to sit on a high hump in the middle…Next stop, Honda….

And then the voices take over…

“Going for a Honda City? Why not a Toyota Corolla? For your profile Corolla is better. Hold it, go for the new Honda Civic…Looks much better…In which case, have you looked at Skoda as an option? Top models, man…If you can wait a few months, Toyota is coming up with a new model for Corolla…And Fiat is coming out with a new model for India…For car styling and interiors, Japan has to bow to Europe! Fiat, excellent sir! Volkswagon also coming with top models sir! Btw, have you looked at Renault option? The new Mahindra Logan? Don’t like its looks? Well, the interiors are really nice and large. And the diesel option makes it very economical. You must look at Diesel! And if you are considering Diesel, Ford Fiesta is an option, a good option. No need to hesitate for diesel sir. Nowadays Diesel engines don’t have earlier type of maintenance problems. Maximum 50 paise per kilometer on maintenance sir…Or Hyundai Verna sir…Made here only…Korean technology is as good nowadays sir! Look at the Santro on a highway sir! Overtakes all other cars, just zips past, sir!

Not looking at Tata sir? Tata highly improved sir. New Indigo is value for money sir….Mitsubiishi also, new model, cedia…Not heard sir? They don’t advertize much sir, but car is good sir” …

“Best is Bollero Sir! Ghat road car sir! Rough use! Rough use! Wont feel it sir! Better than Innova and all! On Indian roads, best buy sir! And they are continuously improving…Drive for ten hours sir! And you will get down and still feel supple enough to play  a set of tennis! Best buy sir! Shall I ask dealer to give you test drive? Try Sir!”

And as I stood, unable to decide, the voices asked - “Err…sir….what price range sir…”..and as I mentioned a rough ballpark, they said “For little more sir, you can get excellent SUV sir. Toyota Innova sir, fantastic buy sir. And Scorpio…What a car sir! You must test drive sir…”

And I thought, why not?

                                           … To be continued …

If you cant beat them, buy them

Some years ago, in one of the houses in my neighborhood, it started raining stones. Honest! One evening, I got a call saying - “hey, can you please come over? We could do with some help. Something weird is happening in our house…” etc, and when I landed up there, sure enough it was a  theatre of the bizarre. At the back of their house, every once in a while, stones came crashing down from the sky. We kept watch, trying to figure out where on earth this was coming from, but were quite clueless at the end of the day.  

Next evening, the rain commenced again. This time I went to their terrace, and kept watch, like a hunter from a treetop ‘machan’. Others took other vantage points. This was the house of a high (retired) Government official. So, cops were on hand too. But that didn’t deter the stones. They came like ‘spit and curse’ of celestials, from nowhere, suddenly falling from the sky…No fixed frequency. Once in five or ten minutes, sometimes after a gap of half an hour, “crash”…

All sorts of speculations were tabled. Some said that this could be black magic. One of the housemaids had separated from her husband. Now that fellow, was rumored to be a practitioner in occult stuff. So, this housemaid was questioned. She threw a fit, screamed like one possessed, and added to the problem. Someone else from the neighborhood came dragging a youth - and handed him over to the cops, saying that the fellow was moving around suspiciously, and may well have been throwing the stones. The cops immediately worked on him, but couldn’t extract a confession. It became obvious that he had no idea about the goings-on, and that demeanor of suspiciousness that he wore was the natural-look that God had gifted him with.

The second day too ended clueless.

The third day, experts in occult etc were consulted. Many concerned people, from far and near, shared their war stories. Turned out that every one had some crazy banshee real-life experience, and offered expert advice for free. Come evening, cops came, and the rain started on schedule.

Some one hour into the rain, they caught the cloud!

It was a housemaid of the house next to theirs. This girl (in her late teens) was caught red-handed. She had been expertly threw stones without anyone noticing. She had been somewhere around all the time, but no one had seen her doing the act. She had all along acted like one trying to help from the other side of the wall, as one of the watchers, saying that stones were falling over there as well. She was the hound disguised as the hare! She slipped once, and they caught her, stones in hand. Turned out that she had been paid by someone to create a nuisance here. Well, the cops questioned her, warned her, and let her go. That was that, chapter over.

That was some years ago. The house that was stoned, has since been demolished, and a set of flats has come up there. This got done just a month or so ago, and the original folks moved in to one of the flats. They had invited us to visit them. And imagine my surprise. That maid from their next door, the perpetrator of the stone-shower, was now working here as a maid! Working for the people she had stoned!

Well, its not easy getting maids nowadays, and one can’t be very choosy. ‘Better a known  devil than an unknown angel’, and all that.

Explanation was not far to seek. Earlier, she had been working for the competition. Now she was an employee of this house!

Capitalism! Thats the occult that works, any time, every time!

The boy who came in from the cold…

Suresh is a general odd-job man. He runs a video business. He also runs a food business. And more.

Sometime around 8 pm tonight, Suresh walked in to my home, bringing this young mentally challenged boy. Looked to be around 10 or 12 years of age. This boy was apparently roaming around, lost, near a photo shop. Suresh has had some experience filming children in special schools, and so could empathize. He tried speaking to the boy, but couldn’t get a proper response. He waited for an hour on the road, but no one came looking for the boy. Then he brought the boy to my home, for my better half runs a special school, and may be able to help. He dropped the boy here and went away.

Now, this boy could speak only four words - Amma, Appa, Anna, Aaya. Nothing else. He was at peace. He didn’t seem perturbed at all. Any question put to him brought only one or more of these four words in response.

I spoke to him in Tamil, asking his name. Suddenly he said something that sounded like Asmir. I asked him “Asmir?”…He said “Anna”…It went on like this, and I thought he said “Asif”…I asked “Asif?”…He said “Amma”….

“Which school?” Ambika asked. She named one special school after another, all to no avail. “Amma, Anna, Appa, Aaya” was all he said. He did respond to one school name. But soon ignored it.

This being Deepavali eve, we had some sweets at home. We gave his some Adirasam. He just ate it up in no time. I asked him if he wanted more. He nodded. And had more.

Now, this boy had no identification. All he had was two labels from a dress-brand, and a bunch of bit-papers (say 40, 50 of them), all with “Sri Rama Jayam” written in Tamizh. That’s all he had.

The boy sat in front of me. Silence. Above, in the wall behind him, was a picture of Ramana Maharshi. I looked at Him. He smiled from the picture.

Meanwhile, Ambika, my better half, was busy. She called Rekha, who runs another special school, Matru Mandir, to figure out if she might be able to help identify this child. Rekha is a real metal person, and she soon sent her driver and her nephew. Idea was to photograph the boy, and then have it given to TV Channels, and to register the details with the local police.

Some arrangement was also being made for housing the boy for the night in a special home.

Just as we were about to leave, Suresh landed up again, bringing a man and another boy. They were family! They were absolutely overjoyed to see the boy! Suresh had gone and waited at the local cop station, and sure enough these folks had landed up there, all in a huff. And he brought them here.

It was sheer drama. They were all emotion. They fell at Suresh’s feet. He jumped.

I asked them the boy’s name. They said “Ramesh!”…Nothing that I thought of!

“Which school does he go to?” asked Ambika.

Turned out that they weren’t sending him to any school. The person who came was Ramesh’s fathers elder brother, Shankar. And the youngster was Ramesh’s elder brother, Ganesh. Ramesh’s father it seems is a painter. Well, we gave them details of Rasa, the special school run by Ambika, quite near Ramesh’s home. Shankar was overjoyed. I noted down their details…

What an evening…

All wasn’t so well that ended so well!

Happy Deepavali! 

Delhi diary (Sep 2007) - 9

To round off this series on Delhi, I come back to the beginning, and to my friend Roy, who works in the Delhi University. He has a real sweet tooth, and of late he seems to have given a go to the severe regime of physical exercise that he normally subjected himself to, with the result that his  corporeal opulence suddenly started showing. In conversation about these and such, he spoke of his colleague, Shalini, a Jain girl, who was keeping upavaas (fasting), and managed to go whole days together, eating practically nothing. Speaking of her, he then went on to tell me some peculiar tales that she had shared with him, about her home in Old Delhi, and then seeing my interest, he got her to speak to me on the phone. Here’s what she said.

She said that her family has been in Old Delhi for at least the last five generations. And since 1901 they were living in this haveli just off Chandni Chowk. And in that haveli, in one of the rooms, there was a small shrine of sorts, without any specific markings, that was considered a shrine associated with a Pir, a Sufi saint. Well they paid no special attention to this shrine, and sold that part of the  house to a printing press. Soon after that, things started going wrong with her father, and he was into one problem or the other. And then one day he  had a dream. He dreamt that the Pir told him that he was not happy that the shrine had been disturbed, and that, in fact, worship should be offered here. Taking this to be divine direction, he decided to make amends, and went and prayed at that little shrine. From that day onwards he got relief from the problems that plagued him. Some fifteen years ago he sold the rest of the haveli, but he still goes there every Thursday to offer worship.

I asked her, how is it that the current owners allowed him to still use that place for this purpose. She replied - “Allow? Allow kaise naheen karenge? How will they not allow? Earlier they did object, but then they started having so many problems, which were solved only when they allowed worship to recommence. Every Thursday, they give the key of that place to my father.”

I asked her, “well your family had lived there for such a long time. Did you not know this house had had some special association with some saint?”

She said that they didn’t know anything specific.  But there was one other mysterious thing though. There was this basement room that was always kept locked. No one dared open it. On my asking why, she said that the word was that anyone going in would do so at the risk of one’s life. She said that it was believed that there was something special in there, but that special thing was guarded by a snake. ‘A snake?’ I asked. “Yes, snake. Big snake. We can hear it.”, she said. “Have you seen it?” I asked. “Yes, once, when I was young. It was so big. I ran away in sheer fright. That snake comes out very rarely. We offer worship there on Naga Pancami day, and it comes out then.”.

A Jain, a Sufi saint, Naga Pancami - Oh, this moonlight magic of Chandni Chowk!

So went this story that she shared, conjuring this fascinating insight into Delhi, the city of djinns.

Signing off on this note, I leave you with a picture that a kind reader of this blog sent, on reading this series. This is the Rajpath - the road that leads to Rashtrapati Bhavan (President’s palace), the Parliament and other blocks of “G” power.

Enjoy.

 

The call of Ganga - 6

And to conclude this yatra report, here are a few thousand words.

The first two thousand, are “before-and-after” pictures of my fellow yatrees, Venkat, Marwadi and Ramay.

 

Below, is a long shot of Braj Ghat, as seen from somewhere in the middle of the river.

 And heres a picture of the thatch shelters on the river bank….

****

Time was well past noon when we disembarked and clambered up the steps of Braj Ghat.

Walking back through the throng of pilgrims, our minds’ haze was being pulled down by the insistent call of hunger. None of us were too keen to try the roadside eateries. Someone had put up a tent of sorts and was conducting a ‘bhandara’ - distributing food for free…The place was quite crowded, and our minds, sanitized by city-dettol-hygiene was not quite upto accepting the ambience.

Facing the main highway were several Ashrams. One of them, had a board that said “Paramanand Dham”. Here is a picture.

 

(Pl note one of our cousins sitting on the ledge, right side, below the ‘Om’ symbol)…

Hard to notice?

Well here is the fellow, down on the ground, outside the Ashram gate.

We walked in and found that they were serving lunch…Pilgrims were welcome. So we accepted that welcome and had a sumptuous lunch of Poories, Aloo and some other veg. A Sanyasi in ochre was in charge of the place. After we had had our lunch, he enquired about us, and shared a few pleasentries. He told us that we were welcome to come there every time we came to Gharmukteshwar.

And on that note, we went back to the cab.

As the car took off down the highway, Ramay commenced chanting Sri Rudra Prashna -

“Sri Gurubhyo Nama: ! Hari: Om! Om Namo Bhagawate Rudraaya! Namaste Rudra Manyava…”

—-Concluded—