Random ramblings....with a sense of purpose!

It was the summer of 1975. We had just finished our exams. Aai and Baba were planning a move to our new house and were busy with the preparations. There were many new homes being constructed in the neighbourhood and we (I and my sisters Nandini and Sonu) would play hide-and-seek all day in these semi-constructed homes. We did not have many friends at that time as this was a far-off part of Amravati and there were few families actually staying here. Even at that early age I had acquired the labels of being notorious, of being a troublemaker and would be a constant source of worry for my mother. I would either hurt myself or hurt somebody else or create some sort of nuisance.

A family friend was to visit Nagpur,  where Sharad mama lived. I was fascinated by Nagpur.  One because it was a much bigger city than our Amravati and two, more importantly, because that’s where mama lived. Anyway, my fascination for Nagpur and regard for Mama will become apparent in the following pages so I won’t dwell on it here. My elder sister Nandini and myself began pestering mother if we could go to Nagpur with our family friend. After several days of the yes-no exercise, she finally relented. I was in the seventh heaven! With the kind of preparation which would put an international traveler to shame, my sister and I set off for Nagpur. Mama lived in Gandhi Nagar at that time and that residence was officially known an “Mundlay’s house” in our family since the house belonged to Mr. Mundlay and mama had rented it.

That was the first time I  recall going to Mama’s house. Of course, I had been there earlier too but this is the first time I recall. Since that summer, till I was in my late teens, I was a regular summer visitor to mama’s house. Regardless of whether there was a marriage in the family or if my other cousins were getting together there, I would spend the better part of the summer at Nagpur.

Education was of prime importance in my mother’s family. My mother, uncles and aunts had done very well in their respective fields. She would recount, countless times, the academic exploits of her brothers and sisters and how they did it even while the family sustained on very little it had in terms of money and other material comforts. Academic excellence was a ticket to respect in her family. These stories had a deep impact on me, primarily because I could relate to them. We were not very well off, financially, ourselves and with somebody close in family having attained such success in similar or worse circumstances, I could afford to dream about attaining something similar.

Mother had the highest regard for Sharad mama and he figured prominently in her stories.

She would tell me how mama had topped his M.Sc. and how he worked with the concentration of an Ekalavya, how the family had come to Nagpur from their ancestral village Lonar and how, after seeing the Institute of Science building, mama had resolved to become a professor there. She recalled with pride how once, while the whole family had flocked to see a glittering marriage procession passing by,  mama sat on his table, undisturbed, concentrating on his studies.

She would add stories of his simplicity and straightforward nature: how he had managed with little for himself and how he took care of his family. She would also tell me about Keshav mama, who was a doctor and had passed away before I was born, and about Gangadhar mama who graduated from the famous Jabalpur Engineering College. But primarily, it was Sharad mama whose stories influenced me the most. I wasn’t doing particularly well in school nor was I serious about anything I did. Mother tried hard to inculcate a love for studies and a value for sincerity through these stories.

I held Sharad mama in such high regard that, during my visits to Nagpur, I would wait eagerly for mama to talk to me and tell me inspiring stories. He wasn’t much of a talker though. Once or twice, in the entire two or three month period, he would talk to me. He would ask me how I was doing at school. Sometimes, if he was in a good mood, he would tell me about the new professions in science. He was a good reader. I remember him biking down to the local Deen Dayal Upadhyay library and come with a bunch of books and magazines every other evening. He would tell me success stories in science and business. Later, when I had finished my 10th standard, I vividly recall him telling me about the field of computer science, its recent successes and its potential to influence our lives. I remember him telling me about Dhirubhai Ambani and his reliance industries, about Jayant Naralikar and his work in England, about TIFR and the wonderful work being done there. Later, when he visited Maushi’s house in Mumbai, I recall him spending entire days in the TIFR library. He told me about AT & T’s Bell labs and about IBM. He would tell me, in almost a reprimanding voice, that I should try to emulate these illustrious people. Mama was a tremendous inspiration. Someone who practiced what he said.

My maternal grandfather, Baba or Mhatare Baba as he was called, also figured in my mother’s stories. She told me he was a strict disciplinarian and how he used to make Mukund-dada and Munna get up early in the morning to recite sanskrit slokas. She would also tell me how he and the family were affected after Gandhiji’s murder, about the family’s journey from Chitnis-wada to Lonar and back, the testing times through which she and her siblings completed their education: Sharad mama and Keshav mama living with Baburao ajoba at Nagpur, Gangadhar mama at Mehekar and so on.... At Nagpur, I remember Baba sitting on his favourite “Aaram Khurchi” with his snake-hood walking stick nearby. I was too scared to talk to him and would go near him only to give him water or something to eat. Mami, my grandmother, was pure love, though. She was a short figure and I recall her in a red “lugda”. She always seemed to be busy and in my recollections, I don’t seem to remember her sitting and chatting in a big group. I did manage to give her my share of trouble though. Once I refused to eat my dinner; probably after having a fight with someone. Even in that chaos of people, I recall her coming to me with “doodh-poli” and feeding me late at night. Mami was love personified. Unfortunately, I don’t recall any more moments with her. When she passed away, in 1979, I was just 10 years old. The year before, Hari mama had gotten married. Immediately after the marriage, when mama and Aasha mami came to our Laxmi Nagar house, I recall mami telling mama “Now that you have married, I can die peacefully”.

The summer of 1979, when Hari mama got married, was most memorable. There were tons of people in mama’s house. Many I didn’t even recognize. I had not seen my cousins, Anuradha, Aparna and Moru before that. Moru was the cynosure of all eyes. All day, we would spend time playing with him. He was quite amused by our local breakfast specials like “tukde” and “satu cha peeth” and his comments on them would be source of hearty laughter for all. Moru fell ill that summer, what with the searing heat of Nagpur, and I recall us cousins making trips to get cold cloth to apply on his forehead. The mornings at Laxmi nagar were the best part of the day. Some 10-12 of us would sleep on the “gacchi”. Invariably, someone would wake up early in the morning and would then wake everybody up. The police training school, just behind the house, was a picture of activity early morning. We would see the jawans marching and doing their exercises. Till the sun was up significantly, we would sit there, watching the jawans, commenting on them, joking about people passing by (in a hurry, if they were going for their morning duties, or otherwise). It was just an amazing time. That was the first occasion, and to this date the only, when all my cousins got together.

Mama’s house would always be full during those summers. Some subset of the family would always find time to visit every year. It was here that I got to know the elders of my family. Apart from the fun and frolic, it was here that we children got valuable lessons from our elders: lessons in learning to live properly, learning to respect others, learning to share our joys and sorrows...

While at Nagpur, I shuttled between mama’s house and Chandu maushi’s house. She lived in Shankar nagar. Pappu, Madhav and me would get up early in the morning and go for long walks. Stories from Ramayan and Mahabharat had their toll on us and we would spend the morning building “Dhanushya-ban”. Madhav was the leader and demanded absolute obedience. We, the three of us and sometimes Vandana, would spend the afternoon acquiring “cheech-bilai” from a tree in the woods nearby or go to Maalu-maushi’s place which was in the neighbourhood. Chandu-maushi and Maalu-maushi were great friends. I remember the big party at maushi’s place when kaka bought a new “lambretta”. That was the first time I had seen a close relative own a vehicle. Later, after my thread ceremony, I remember kaka teaching me and Pappu how to perform “sandhya” and how to recite “Ram-rakshya”.

Soon after, maushi shifted to Mumbai. I started coming to Nagpur on my own. Jayanta and I became very good friends. Mukund and Munna were too senior to me. Mukund was a medical student while Munna had finished his graduation and working towards his C.A. I don’t recall having lengthy conversations with either of them; primarily because the age difference between us was significant. Vahini sent Mukund’s food every evening. Whenever the dabbawala, who came to pick up Mukund’s food, shouted “Bai...dabba”, I would run to the kitchen to pick up the dabba and give it to the smiling man. Jayanta and myself were passionate about cricket and music. The mornings and evenings would be spent playing cricket with the local team. In the afternoon, we would play cricket in the courtyard or go for the movies. Poor Jayanta! He would haul me all the way to the old Shyam talkies in Mahal and we would watch a Dada Kondke flick. Back from the movie, we would enter from the side door and start eating our lunch quietly. It wasn’t easy to trick Vahini though. She would be resting in the room inside and would come out and serve us food. Somehow, she always knew where we had been. This “side door” was a big mystery to me. Ever since I started going to Mama’s house alone, I never recall entering from the main door. It was always this side door. Moreover, everybody (except mama and possibly munna) entered from this side door. Jayanta and I spent a wonderful time together. We both loved sweets and would go to impossible lengths to have them. Once, I remember, a couple of liters of milk went bad. We came to know about it at around 10 in the night. For about 4 hours, we sat in the kitchen and made kalakand.  Occasionally, we even collected enough money to go to Haldiram’s shop at Shankar Nagar. Eating paan was also something we both enjoyed. We would hear of  new specialty paans and would make it a point to go to these shops after dinner. Music was another passion we shared. Later, when Munna bought a new tape recorder, with four speakers placed in four corners of the living room, we would spend the afternoons listening to sad  Mohd. Rafi and Kishore songs. We would be in the room for the entire afternoon and as soon as mama came into the house, we would shut the music off and vanish from the scene, never to be seen again till dinner. Vahini liked “peeldaar” Lata songs and would ask us to play some. Munna had a venerable collection of  classical hindustani music but we never touched those cassettes. For us, music was equivalent to sad Rafi and Kishore songs. We would go to the music shop in Shankar Nagar to record sad songs. We would spend hours trying to fish out sad songs from old movies and get them recorded on cassettes. I was good friends with Madhav too. Later, when Madhav came to Amravati for his studies, we became quite close to each other.

I finished my twelfth and started work towards my undergraduate degree. On the way home for the summer,  I would travel from Delhi to Nagpur, and from there to Amravati. I would spend some days in Nagpur and then proceed to Amravati. My discussions with mama would be more technical than before. He was retired then. He would ask me about the latest in computer science. He still read a lot and would encourage me by giving examples of successes in my area of interest. The discussions would be lengthier than before as he had more time. He always managed to give me a direction to follow, an example to emulate.

The effect of a good family environment on the pschye of a child cannot be overstated. In these fast-paced times, the death, or near death, of the good old family environment is a tremendous loss to the children of today. The summer gatherings, the loving care of all the elders of the family and more importantly, the sense of togetherness which bound one and all seem things from the distant past. Sometimes I am saddened, rather paradoxically, by a feeling that today’s children are relinquishing childhood, getting old, too soon. The song of childhood is an absolute gem. Today, sadly, we would rather prefer to fast-forward it and listen to the mundane stuff. Among other things, childhood is a time when one unravels the mystery of the real world in a slow but certain way through our experiences with parents, family and friends. For me, the family gatherings at Nagpur provided an ideal environment for such experiences. Here in the west, I observe with interest the upbringing of the children of my Indian friends. Somehow, I always feel that a flavor is missing from their lives. Their lives seem to be too fast, too mechanical, too impersonal. I’m reasonably sure that this missing flavor is nothing else but this wonderful sense of togetherness which an extended family offers.

The tough question, though, is what steps should we, as a family, take to offer this delightful flavor to our children. Because, if we don’t we will be doing them great injustice. Parents are always available for their children. However, in terms of the lessons of life learnt, regular family reunions are much richer. They just offer so much more. Generalizations assume too much; so I’ll refrain and talk about myself: For me, the value of the time the elders in our family spent with us, their teachings, the examples which they set before us is invaluable. So far, in doing my part in passing on this priceless gift to the young ones in the family, I have done a miserable job. With all sincerity, I resolve to rectify this mistake in the times ahead; because fundamentally, I am convinced that those wonderful summers spent at mama’s house have helped shape almost every aspect of my life. In whatever I am today, I attribute a more than significant portion to them.

                                                                - By Milind Dawande. USA