Where is Nagaland .?

It has rained ,humidity is up, but the weather cool. Till a  fortnight ago, roads shimmered under blinding glare of a summer sun at its apogee. As it is, lazy bones resist locomotion of an ageing body, the scorching sun further reinforcing its desire to stay put. 

So, my FB pledge sometime back to send books from my overflowing bookshelves to a recently set up private library in the far, far land of Nagaland by some young enterprising netizens bitten by the book bug remained unredeemed . In fact, almost forgotten. 

A week ago my wife received a request from a distant cousin at a distant place for a donation of new children books for a new library the lady was setting up for destitute, vagrant children. My perfidy was out in the open now. 

That’s why I queued up at the local post office with not one but two boxes stuffed with books in my hands, a testing time for my arm muscles. While banks have switched to level counters, this PO has raised ones with a two feet glass partition atop further raising the elevation. Quite naturally, customers look down upon and the clerk looks up to . An unequal encounter at all times.

When my turn came I quickly shoved the two boxes through the pigeon hole in the glass partition. My arms heaved a sigh of relief, so did my luck. Had the hole been smaller, I would have had to shot-put the boxes over the partition. 

I looked down expectantly at the lady behind the counter, a good three feet down below. A placid, mirthless face, highlighted by a Shushma Swaraj style bindi smack in the middle of the forehead, looked up at me quizzically. 

‘Ek ek kar ke dijiye’ , her lips moved, I could sense words wafting up from deep down, only to register as inaudible murmur in ageing ears. So I stood sheepishly unresponsive and the two boxes sat in queue on her side of the counter. I must have come across as a dumb senile oldie which she must suffer. Saying no more ,she picked up one and settled down to her business. The other lay unattended .I wasn’t ruffled, the box was still on the right side of the partition and my arms unburdened. 

Meanwhile, she turned over the parcel, examined it on all sides ,then looked at the address for what to me seemed an eternity. Without raising her head she wondered aloud, 

“ Yeh kisi foreign desh mein bhejna hai ?” 

This time I heard her. 

“nahin, Nagaland”

“ Nagaland kahan hai “

“ India ,north east mein “

Unconvinced, she looked up this time with a quiet expression, best understood as a cocktail of exasperation, condescension and scorn. The crowd in the queue got impatient. Someone behind blurted, 

“ haan, haan India mein hai “ 

The lady shot back at the unseen interloper, 

“Phir Pin Code kya hai ?”

The fellow stood chastened. Neither he nor I knew the Pin Code. Done for, come again with a fuller address, spoke the mind. However, I was relieved to see her get on with the job, input data from the offending parcel, take the second box from the counter and do likewise. Then she looked up and said’

“₹258 and give me change ,if you have.”

I didn't have change, so exchanged a tenner for ₹8 in coins with the more than willing man next in the queue. All went well. 

While she counted the money, I wondered, was the lady unaware of the existence of Nagaland even after 70 years of it being an integral part of the country ? If so, it reflected poorly on the quality of our education system. 

But the giveaway came when she placed the offending box back on the counter with a small slip of paper and a pen .On the paper was the Pin Code, written in clear firm hand. 

‘ write the Pin Code on the box’, she said. 

While I complied, she kept looking up at me with a slight hint of a smile, but eyes and bindi speaking aloud “GOTCHA’. 

A lesson well taught . There are many ways to put it across, her way or the brusque rejection for want of complete address. And the snow white top is no excuse , you still have to do things the right way. 

The ebb and flow of life in elderly domesticity

After thrashing about on the bed for a good half an hour, I take one last peep through the gap in the window curtains. Dawn is giving way to the day. I arise and groggily plod my way to the door that opens on the balcony. As I ensconce myself in my time-worn cane chair, older than my son, my gaze naturally falls on the bungalow just across the road. 

The house is already up . Soon the middling statured ,stockily built, swarthy fellow with a slight paunch , in shorts and T-shirt, an attire as unchanging as his grim, frozen visage, will open the big black gate. One by one he will drive out the two cars in the compound and park them alongside the boundary wall, one on either side of the gate. Always the same cars at the same spot. This done, he will coolly walk back to the gate, put the latch on and look up. Our eyes will meet giving me a glimpse of the perennial scowl playing on his face. Out of sheer curiosity I will keep my gaze fixed on him, who knows, someday, he will honour me with a knowing smile. But he can’t afford to scowl me down, other daily chores need to be attended to. So he turns around and walks out of sight. 

My day has begun, an unfailing denouement of the days in three years past superannuation that  I have stayed in Patna. One has the luxury to watch time pass by before picking up the morning papers, that is, to slow down the tempo of life at will. Today my wife’s bed tea is WhatsApp.  So, my craving for the real one must wait out till she has read all that was posted while she slept .And the wait is a bit longish. Yet nothing insidious should be read into it, many adjustments wriggle into life styles of retired people. No point dwelling upon it. 

But that’s not how it was supposed to go for me .With the daily grind of office-going behind me for good everyday held promise of being as different as I wanted to . I always dreamt of a long long road trip across India to discover India and then settling down to write my very own magnum opus ‘ Discovery of India’ . Nehru’s ‘Discovery of India’  delved into the past, mine would describe, dissect and analyse the present. Nehru’s was a product of a ‘mind game’ played within the confines of a prison, mine would present snapshots of a ‘live’ exploration. Greatness beckoned me . Alas , no sponsor could be found and my wife sawed through my woolly headedness . Ah, she knows my true worth. Moreover she likes to live in cotton wool - orderliness, certainty and caution being her hallmark.

So, till we next go parenting ( not our own children, but their children, the grandchildren ) at our children’s places, like other normal folks we are cocooned into blissful domesticity. Life will perambulate about myriad recurrent activities.  The glum fellow will open the gates and that black cow after a leisurely recce will settle its hinds in any vacant space under the shade of that tree across the road and wait to be feted by the faithful with crumbs of roti. Come noon and the black horse harnessed to a cart will give her company, while its owner takes a siesta. 

Yet this humdrum rhythm of life is oft interrupted by real life happenings that amuse ,bewilder and even stupify our senses . It’s not all that mundane an existence, after all. 

Take for instance that horse driven cart. Once the power nap is over, the owner will cart off to the main road, a taped announcement blaring at full blast calling the faithful to buy the assured protection afforded by a horse shoe or sundry articles like rings, kadaa, bicchia etc made from horse shoe of a black horse. All items at a fixed price of ten rupees a piece, except the horse shoe proper . That costs ₹250. Protection from all evils , not mere indemnity, never came so cheap. 

Once sheer curiosity led me to watch the fellow glib talk a sceptic into buying the protective shield. The conversation went something like this.  

‘Are you sure nothing will happen to me if I wear it.”

“Absolutely nothing . No buri nazar, no family discord, no accidents, good luck in exams, business , careers ,in fact all that you wished for will come to you “ 

“Not even accidents ? “ 

“ not likely , but what can one do if the accident occurs due to a fellow who doesn’t wear one ?  Still , rest assured ,those who wear the ring are never grievously hurt.” 

I didn’t need to hear any more . In deference to the sheer brilliancy of his sophistry, I slunk away quietly. They don’t teach such earthy wisdom in salesmanship even in Harvard. What in effect he meant was that in an accident where ‘heretics’ get both legs broken ,a ‘faithful’ gets away with just one broken leg. Not bad ,but I still am a ‘kale ghore ka naal’ infidel . Not having iron in my heart ,how could iron adorn my fingers ? 

One good thing about a retired existence is that it gives ample time to observe and digest the goings on around you, discovering new angles in things old. The art of story telling is a heavenly endowment to a privileged few and it summons loads of creativity, imagination and literary facility. Not for lesser souls. But real life anecdotes too can be fantabulously entertaining. And who better have resources than retired ones to share it ? Following up on this train of thought I hope, in due course, to share amusing happenings that may cross my path.