Kaleidoscope

Mummy often narrated instances from our childhood. Each one of us had been blessed with a gregarious nature; singing songs and telling tall tales was our forte. Manoj, all of four was once narrating a story about a king. With his mop of curly hair and angelic countenance which quite belied the naughtiness within, he was everyone’s favourite story teller. ‘Raja aur rani ek din jungle mein ja rahe the. Jaate, jaate…’ He paused here and everyone waited with bated breath to learn about the lion which suddenly pounced on the brave king or the enemy’s army which had them surrounded from all sides. Taking a deep breath, our hero continued ‘jaate jaate…unko bhookh lagi’. You didn’t need a crystal ball to divine that so early in life his priorities were very clear--Food was hero number one in every action-packed melodrama.

I’m sure this pragmatism is a family trait. As a child, Bhaiya was fond of singing ‘ek pardesi mera dil le gaya’. Instead of the nebulous ‘gham’ he preferred the realistic ‘aam’, because to him it made more sense that a person would give a mango rather than an abstract notion like pain. So the second line, as per his rendition, went, ‘jaate- jaate meetha- meetha aam de gaya.’ I always sang ‘dar badar ki khaate hain thokar’ with a lot of feeling. Despite the melancholia inherent in the song, the audience could be seen stifling a smile or two, as I would bang my head on the nearest wall every time I came to ‘thokar’, to ensure that there was no room for doubt in anyone’s mind about the singer’s plight.

During family get-togethers, we used to have full-scale programmes, comprising plays, songs and the like. On one such occasion, Jiji and her band of sincere cousins were presenting a song about a boat rowing out to sea-- ‘kishti chali re, daan sambhalo re’. The lyrics were serious, exhorting all on board to ably man the vessel. Though the tone, tenor and tune made it sound suspiciously like a poem being recited, the enthusiastic girls had rehearsed it for hours, with unabated vigour. Sadly for them, at the finale Manoj decided to sit on the steps and present his own version, with actions to match the words. The audience was thoroughly captivated by the cherubic performer and hardly noticed the group warbling onstage.

And then there was the magic show. An upturned table was kept on the stage, its four legs draped with a sheet, below which Manoj sat, concealed from view. The sheet had a hole in its middle. Bhaiya, the conjuror, dramatically plucked out flowers and such stuff from thin air, the items being passed up through the aperture by Manoj. Thunderous applause greeted the performance and with graceful bows to the highly appreciative audience, the magician withdrew from the scene. His assistants—perhaps smarting over the damp squib of their group song-- were clumsy in removing the table, and a wail rent the air. ‘Bhaiya, chot lag gayi’ said a quavering voice from under the sheet. Before the assistants could get their act together, the disembodied voice was followed by Manoj clambering out, tears et al. The cloak of invisibility was not so invisible after all

Manoj may have earned sympathy here, but he sure got on the wrong side of Mummy the next time round. Sweety Jiji was supposed to wear his bright red outfit in her role as the postbox, but he kicked up a huge fuss. He wasn’t going to lend anything to anyone he said, and did his usual song and dance to drive home the point. One of Newton’s laws of motion unfortunately swung into play and Manoj’s actions had an equal and opposite reaction. Mummy the disciplinarian was not standing for the tantrum, no way. The doting aunts tried to step in and suggest a via media but Mummy’s mind was made up. The lad was put into the safe custody of our faithful retainer and he missed the entire show. The rest of us youngsters, if at all harbouring notions of mutiny, decided to be model children thereafter.   

All the World's a stage

Bhaiya and Jiji were keenly involved in dramatics, and during the vacations, would regale us with stories of the plays they had acted in. Papa surprised us one day by saying that he had a flair for the theatre too. Now Papa was the quintessential man of few words. Even discounting the fact that opportunities to get a word in edgeways were few and far between, he was basically the strong, silent type. So, a statement from him on his penchant for acting had us all slack-jawed. A rare hush descended on the family. Then the questions flew, thick and fast--when, where and in what? It emerged that when he was studying in BHU, IT, he had acted in the play, ‘Baiju Bawra’. Again, open-mouthed wonder and stunned silence in the room.

One has gracefully omitted mentioning that though we were all reasonably good at singing, there was one notable exception—tunefulness had given Papa quite a wide berth. In such a situation, the very idea of him acting in a play, where the interlude between one intricate song of Baiju and another, was one complicated song of Tansen close on the heels of the last impossible one, had us dumbfounded. He described the play scene by scene, building up to the dramatic moment of the historic contest between the two maestros. “And then”, he said with a flourish, “I come onto the stage responding to a clarion call of ‘Sipahiyon, Baiju Bawra ko giraftaar kar lo’, being one among the posse of policemen who drag Baiju away.” 

My own tryst with acting commenced with our presentation of Snow- white and the Seven Dwarfs. Jiji was going to be Snow- white, while Manoj and I were among the seven dwarfs. The roles were being hotly debated when one budding talent--probably the wicked stepmother-- acerbically commented that since Manoj was fairly plump and rosy-cheeked, he’d be a good choice for ‘Greedy.’ Well, I may have called him that any number of times, particularly in the context of toffees which invariably turned out to be the last of a vanishing breed, but I wouldn’t stand for anyone else implying the same. A cold war broke out then and there which almost jeopardised the whole thing. Anyway, the upshot was that Manoj was cast as Sneezy and I was Grumpy, while some new recruit, blissfully ignorant about the connotations, was ensnared into the role of Greedy. Manoj's lines comprised an awful amount of sneezing; I had to look and sound quite sullen, which was alien to my generally sunny disposition, but we enjoyed ourselves immensely all the same.

The unforgettables

Though Mummy’s forgetfulness was the stuff that legends are made of, she scored hugely over Jiji in one respect, namely, recognising people. She would remember students who had left her class more than a decade ago and it never failed to thrill them. Jiji, on the other hand, was a dismal failure here, given to looking askance, if not downright suspiciously, at those she’d been back slapping just a day before. Had she chosen to be a part of the intelligence community, no doubt she’d have let out all manner of unmentionables to the wrong ‘un, mistaking the KGB chappie for the CIA fellow. One particular uncle in the colony got a blank look from her every time he came to visit. This repeated refusal of the grey cells to go ding dong made her so embarrassed that she started staring unblinkingly at him whenever he sat in the drawing room. One afternoon, the doorbell rang and she rushed to open the door. I hissed that if the visitor appeared to be a complete stranger from Timbuctoo, she should greet him as Prasad Uncle. She laughingly dismissed my suggestion, stating airily, with a wave of the hand as it were, that now there was no question of making a mistake. She could practically sketch his face like a police artist. With that lofty statement, she peeped out, asked the person to wait and told Papa there was someone at the door. Papa went out and immediately called Prasad Uncle inside. I think Jiji decided against transfixing anyone with her limpid gaze after that debacle.

I don’t suppose it’s catching, but I was afflicted with much the same thing when it came to Mummy’s cousin, Shekhar Mama. Somehow, he managed to look different every time he came to our house, with the result that I gave him an unfocussed look on each such occasion. I confessed this to Jiji and she said in tones of utter shock that surprising though it was, she, too, was never able to recognise him. I let that one pass, but swore to make the grey cells do a jig the next time he came. Anyway, one evening, Papa, Mummy, Jiji and I were seated in the verandah when the gate opened. It was a close contest between Jiji and me; we both sprang up and said in tones of heartfelt warmth ‘Namaste Shekhar Mama’. He seemed rather shaken with the fondness of the greeting. Papa looked up, and said ‘R.P.Singh, aap file le aaye hain?’ It was his steno from the office. Had I but seen ‘Ghajini’ then, the term short-term memory loss would have acquired a different significance, only, I‘d have kicked myself, not the other party.

There’s a School in the Valley of Maithon

Valley School was where most of us studied. It was only till Class seven and you had to join some other school after that. It was the epitome of a small-town school. We called the teachers ‘Aunty’ because the Headmistress, Aunty Paul did not like the convent culture of calling all teachers, married or no, as Miss. The focus was equally on academics, sports and cultural activities. We were not allowed to converse in any language other than English, and if caught lapsing into the vernacular, got a stinging slap for our pains. The discipline would have put an Army boot camp to shame. Those who were not in full uniform, meaning if they had forgotten either the tie or the belt, got a couple of Aunty Paul’s best in full view of the school during the morning assembly. She used to observe which boys spent the entire lunch-break on the playground and would tell their teachers to ensure the boys ate their Tiffin before the classes re-assembled. 

The terror Aunty Paul inspired was legendary. Once she saw three boys, who had passed from Valley School and were now in St. Patrick’s, shouting on the road. She sternly told them to stop behaving like hooligans and called them home the next evening. Despite knowing that she no longer had any control over them, two of the boys turned up at her door-step the next day. She reprimanded them for forgetting all the manners and good behaviour that their parents and Valley School had tried so hard to inculcate. Both boys burst into tears. Clutching home- made biscuits, two remorseful teenagers left Aunty Paul’s home that evening, with a lesson they took to heart for life. 

Valley School was particular about celebrating important events. Sports’ Day had races and Drills for each class and though the programme became frightfully long, proud parents happily sat through the entire day. Mummy narrated with great amusement my performance in the Duck race as a four year old. The race started; gifted athletes competed at breakneck pace and prizewinners triumphantly took their places on the victory stand. Amidst all this, one lone duckling was found quacking on. When the older girls, tasked with the responsibility of clearing the field after every race gently tried to get yours truly to waddle off, I responded with an indignant squawk, that my objective was to reach the finishing line, and everyone could jolly well wait till I got there. 

For Republic Day and Independence Day, we used to have a March Past and though I was easily the shortest, I used to be in the last line. This was on account of God’s gift of a stentorian voice, which enabled me to loudly shout ‘Saamne Dekh’ after the last line of marchers had crossed the Chief Guest. I used to be awfully thrilled about that and any wisecracks about my height thus always fell flat. Each student got a packet containing biscuits and toffees after the March Past got over, which we eagerly awaited. But the attendant problem was how to survive the interminable monologue masked as the Chief Guest’s inspiring speech. The teachers watched us with an eagle eye lest we fidget and we were therefore model children, deeply concerned that the punishment may turn out to be deprival of the biscuit-toffee packet. The only Chief Guest I remember, and understandably with an emotion akin to affection, is the one who stood before an expectant congregation, took the mike in hand, and said ‘Dismiss’. We complied with alacrity. I wonder we didn’t all break out into enthusiastic applause as well; no doubt the aforementioned gimlet eyes put paid to any such ideas. 

I was always a sincere student and Manoj was a study in contrast. All his waking hours were spent in playing cricket or football or talking about the last/next big match. Invariably he got hauled up for not paying attention and would then cajole me into writing a hundred times ‘I will not talk in class’. I even recall writing an essay for him once when the teacher was too new to recognise his hand-writing. It must have been too girlish in style, because it didn’t fetch anything much by way of marks, so Manoj routinely scoffed at my command of English after that. English as a subject I thoroughly enjoyed, which is more than can be said for Mathematics. My nemesis were those trains which insisted on starting from two different stations and moving inexorably towards each other, while one hapless student tried her damnedest to figure out when they would cross one another and holler recognition in a burst of shrill noise. Why both the trains couldn’t play catch me if you can and run in the same direction was beyond me. Every time the question stared up from the examination paper, a cold sweat trickled down my spine. They never did manage to meet—not on my watch for sure. Probably believed staunchly in Kipling’s theory that ‘east is east and west is west and ne’er the twain shall meet.’

Seasons in the Sun

We enjoyed all manner of activities—picnics in which everyone tried their hands at cooking, playing Holi, lighting diyas and bursting crackers in Diwali, and congregating in the Puja pandal for Durga Puja. But for students, Saraswati Puja was especially meaningful. Being the patron goddess of learning it was very important to propitiate her, and ask her to put in a good word for us with the examiners. The puja pandal was always decorated beautifully. The canopy would be a kaleidoscope of colour and festooned with tinsel which added to the glitter. There would be people everywhere, laughing and chatting, while children ran around and the pretty girls glanced coquettishly at potential beaus who pretended to ignore them. The colour yellow being of particular significance, the ladies wore sarees of all hues of the sun and created a dazzling picture. The statue of the goddess in a shimmering yellow silk saree emitted a different kind of radiance, which even today suffuses my memories with its golden touch. Anxious parents, otherwise perfect martinets when it came to regulating study hours, encouraged their recalcitrant offspring to pray to the goddess, for only she would be benign enough to overlook their cavalier attitude towards studies. 

Most of the colony children did well in academics, going on to study in leading institutions of the country. But there are exceptions to every rule. One of the girls, though below average in studies thought that her main purpose in life was idle chitchat and gossip. She succeeded admirably in that, but at the end of the year when her report card came, she found that she had flirted unsuccessfully with Lady Luck. In other words, she had failed. Undaunted by this minor setback, she erased the marks and did some nifty over-writing, so Failed was substituted with Passed and all was hunky dory at home. Till the time when her mother met with one of the class teachers in the book store and fondly asked how her dear daughter was doing. The next thing we knew was much banging on the neighbour’s door in the dead of night, with the young lady screaming that her parents had found out and were going to kill her. Well, nothing as melodramatic as that happened, but her red-eyed visage in the bus for days altogether, was a chastening image for those who toyed with the idea of playing fast and loose with studies. 

Maithon was one sleepy place, with only a handful of shops. One Sunday, we had just finished lunch when there were familiar noises of a car drawing up. We looked out the window and lo and behold! Papa’s cousin sister Uma Bua and her husband, who had never visited us before, were getting out of the car with both their sons. The gas cylinder was empty and the fire lit in the morning, had died down. Only some dying embers and ashes remained. There was no milk in the fridge and the dear old market opened only at six in the evening, so there was no scope of purchasing even the most godforsaken brand of biscuits. Mummy looked at us and we tried hard not to look at anyone else, because the question was writ large on everyone’s face—what do you offer the guests? 

It was left to Jiji’s innovative skills to rustle up something. So she went and mixed some milk powder with water. There being no chance of any heating, energetic efforts on the mixing front were made, but the milk powder got a cold response from the water and decided to float frostily on top. Coffee and sugar were stirred in, the whole thing poured into decorative glasses, ice added generously and I was pushed out to serve the concoction. ‘Aha cold coffee’ said one of the cousins with evident delight, before taking a large sip from his glass. He put it down with the speed of a striking cobra. The others gingerly tried theirs, and moved like greased lightning to put down their respective glasses. Silence fell on the group and conversation languished noticeably. Eventually, the mithai they had brought was served in this TINA situation; the guests took leave soon after. 

When we all sank down to do a postmortem, it emerged that Uma Bua had written to Papa a month ago and he in turn had informed Mummy right then, that they would be reaching our home around lunchtime that particular Sunday. He’d blissfully overlooked her absent-mindedness, and not reminded her even on that morning, assuming that she’d remember to prepare a special lunch for the guests. Mummy, who was such an enthusiastic hostess, was mortified at her oversight, especially because these were formal relatives on their maiden visit to our home. We somehow managed to laugh off the whole thing, but I fancied I detected a less than warm smile on Uma Bua’s countenance when we met again. 

Mummy’s forgetfulness was legendary. It wasn’t uncommon for us to hunt all over the house for her glasses and find them perched high on her forehead. Then there was the time when she fixed a yoga teacher who used to come every evening to take her through the exercises. On the first day, after the session was over he requested for permission to leave. She smiled encouragingly; he kept waiting and so did she. Finally he said apologetically that if she gave back his pair of slippers instead of wearing them, he might perhaps proceed for departure. 

We narrated all these stories with glee to friends and family alike, till one day Mummy indignantly pointed out that everyone (read Papa), had conveniently forgotten her sterling contributions of yore. She used to be in a state of high alert in the days just after their marriage, when she and Papa possessed a set of outdoor chairs of which one was literally on its last legs. On many a tranquil evening, neighbours would drop in for a chat and a cup of tea. So the hosts perfected the drill. While one person went to the gate to welcome the guests with every appearance of warmth, the second one sprinted to take possession of the chair which tended to topple over with an unseemly crash if the person seated on it was not parked at a particular angle;. It was Mummy who invariably remembered the delicate situation and quickly occupied the chair, seating herself with aplomb while urging the guests to make themselves comfortable. 

Papa was as meticulous and careful as Mummy was absent-minded. He had the same fountain pen for years on end and this could be said of his daily routine as well. He rose at five every morning and on return from his walk, would make two cups of tea, for Mummy and himself, and then listen to mournful melodies on the radio. Being late risers, we children missed the daily quota of K.L. Saigal and Pankaj Mullick, but we took this irredeemable loss with equanimity. Papa was punctual to a fault; very often we’d reach the venue of a wedding reception and find whorls of dust as cleaning staff swept the place. He noted down train ticket details in his diary, as there was always the fear that Mummy would lose the tickets midway through the vacation and he’d need to do some quick number crunching. The only area Mummy scored over him was in not getting her pocket picked. She always clutched her bag tightly to herself, as past experience had shown that at railway stations and in cinema halls, Papa was not the man you could rely on for paying for the refreshments. The indigenous solution to this was to keep only a meager amount in his wallet; he once had to borrow money from his driver when one of his sandals broke and its repair cost a princely sum of ten rupees.

Those were the days

Our main source of entertainment, apart from books and games, was the radio. We had a venerable old-timer, and all vied for its affections. Effectively that meant Papa listened to News, which Manoj promptly changed to cricket as soon as Papa left for office, while I was forever wailing plaintively in the background that I had missed the latest songs. Luckily, Jiji was clueless about which radio station hosted which programme, so there was one less contender and Bhaiya was always so easy going that he listened to a potpourri of news-commentary –music without a murmur whenever he was home from the hostel. 

By and large we were all fond of music, so as soon as a song began playing, we’d try to guess from the opening bars which song it heralded. It was neck and neck between Manoj and me, though he was generally disinclined to concede gracefully when he lost. We were musically talented, especially Manoj who could whistle any tune and even play on the back of an upturned bucket like a tabla. All of us were given to belting out songs at any point of time. I’ve always loved singing and even today, burst into song without invitation. Needless to add, it leads to some rather pained expressions around. Jiwesh, the ever supportive spouse, casts away habitual silence for a long drawn out monologue to drown out the noise, while the girls simply edge away. 

We had hardly any house-help, and were supposed to do our bit in the house. After a notable performance in heating up food, when I placed the cup with the milk directly on the fire, I got the easiest chores, like plumping up the cushions. Jiji took on the toughest tasks of cleaning, while Manoj was assigned the in-between stuff like folding all the clothes neatly in a pile. He always had home-grown solutions, so we’d find that instead of sorting through all the clothes piled high on the clothes rack, he’d simply thrown a sheet on them, hiding the mess from outside view. No matter how much he grumbled about having to do work, he wasn’t allowed to shrug off anything, unlike many households where boys had a privileged position and generally lorded it over the girls. 

I always wished that being the youngest of four siblings I would be pampered and spoilt, like a lot of my friends were. But no one was inclined to be indulgent, including Bhaiya of the most amiable disposition. I tried to throw tearful tantrums, wouldn’t eat a meal waiting to be cajoled, and became woebegone at the first instance, but somehow nothing clicked. Once I even wrote a note threatening to run away to my Uncle’s in Jamshedpur, but everyone pulled my leg so unmercifully, that henceforth I dropped all pretensions of being a sensitive soul. I emerged from all this a veritable battle scarred veteran, and in fact thanked my lucky stars many years later for that unsentimental upbringing, when I saw class mates dissolve into floods of tears at the drop of a hat. 

The colony we grew up in was a small world in itself, and families lived side by side for decades, sharing bitter sweet experiences, the children growing up all the while. The evenings were for playing and nothing could get us back before seven p.m., when we trooped in reluctantly into our respective homes, looking by then like something the cat had refused to drag in. The older boys played cricket, with an all-consuming passion. I remember the time when one boy brought along his parents, who demanded to know from Manoj, the captain of his team, why the apple of their eye was never given a chance to bat. Now the specimen in question closely resembled the selfsame apple, being fairly rotund in shape and quite unable to run the proverbial extra mile for his team. But the belligerence of his parents had an equal and opposite reaction in the captain, who hinted to the opposite team that they could try their hand at bowling bouncers. The end result was a bawling batsman and a set of budding mama’s boys who crossed their hearts and swore to die rather than lug along a heavy-handed relative to fix matters in future. 

Mummy made the mistake of fondly stating once that her children didn’t fight much, and it was almost as if we set out determinedly to prove her wrong. Young Manoj was ever ready for a squabble, as opposed to Bhaiya who was always mild. Bhaiya never scolded us and just one gentle admonishment in the form of ‘Manoj’ from him would bring a sheepish grin on the countenance of the latter and an end to the sibling quarrel of which he usually was the agent provocateur. I remember only one occasion when Bhaiya raised his voice. We’d reached Srinagar and I kept whining that I was hungry while Papa and Mummy were trying to fix a taxi to take us to the hotel. Bhaiya rebuked me and it was solely because we were in public that I didn’t burst into tears. My photographs of that day show me with a markedly sullen expression. 

Manoj and I quarrelled over just about anything. Who got the new pen or the new diary or ate the last toffee—everything required a referee. Jiji usually managed to arbitrate except for one notable occasion when she and Manoj got caught up in a tussle over switching off the light. She wanted to read, he wanted to sleep. The one would switch it on, the other, though normally terribly lazy, would promptly spring out of bed and switch it off, till it became a never ending contest. Finally, Mummy decided the issue—the light would be allowed on whenever any of us wished to study, but certainly not for reading a story-book. In fact Manoj decided the best revenge after yet another fight, was to hide the book I was reading. Books had a soporific effect on him, while I read like a man possessed. So one spat between us and the next thing you knew I was hunting desperately all over the house for a book hidden on the top shelf of the cupboard, which I, with my woeful lack of height, would never be able to find. I kept plotting to get even, but they never fructified, like the best laid plans of mice and men. 

I was the quintessential pain in the neck, because I always wanted to tag along with big sis, despite not having a clue as to what she and her friends were talking about. She’d try to protest, but Mummy invariably quelled it with a firm ‘what’s the problem if she accompanies you?’ So I would sit in the room, happily reading comics by the dozen while they gossiped sotto voce. There was this one time that Jiji had to go to a friend’s place and make a call. She was adamant she wouldn’t take me along and got a scolding too from Mummy, but resolutely stuck to her guns. On the day of my birthday, she presented me with ‘Summer term at St. Clare’s’. She had elicited through skilful questioning that it was the only book I hadn’t read of the series and had called up her friend to get it from the book store and give it to her in school the next day. Mummy felt really bad about the scolding. 

Manoj had a Tom Sawyer like ability to win friends and influence people. One day, he and Arun, who was otherwise very peaceful by nature, were found announcing to the world that Maithon could boast of a road view Circus, with an elephant on bicycle for the first time ever. The elephant in question happened to be an unfriend (an invaluable term coined by social media), who, after a heated argument with the two boys, had decided to ride her bicycle round the colony. This public announcement of Maithon’s latest acquisition didn’t endear them to her one bit, but they didn’t really care. The only thing Manoj took seriously was Mummy’s annoyance, but even then he managed to provoke it every once in a while. She’d be taking an afternoon nap and he’d walk into the room whistling or carelessly knocking his fingers on the nearest wooden surface. She was a light sleeper, and would wake up with an irate ‘Kaun hai’, and the next thing you saw was a pair of heels disappearing round the corner.

My Family and Other animals

I have always maintained that nursery rhymes shape you for life. Superstitions, scoff the disbelievers, but look at my case. I used to recite ‘I am a little tea-pot, short and stout…when I get all steamed up then I shout’ in an appealing prattle. Everyone loved it, especially as I was unable to pronounce the hard ‘T’, but I grew up into a short and what is worse, stout individual, prone to flying off the handle and shouting. How I wish now that I’d stuck to ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’—perhaps it would have wrought a miracle that rained diamonds on me.

Mummy was the most doting mother in the world—she would dash off into the kitchen at twelve midnight if you were hungry—but conversely, also a disciplinarian. I remember when Manoj and I were walking back from Ranchi Colony one day; we decided to buy a lemon drop each. These were kidney shaped sweet-sour toffees that were stored in a big jar and the cost of one was five paise. It wasn’t a princely sum but in good ol’ days, no one had heard of pocket money. Since Sukul ji who ran the paan-dukaan recognised us well enough to be assured of our credit-worthiness, we bought two lemon drops. The home-front was another story altogether. We asked Mummy for the money, saying that we had been unable to resist the sweet temptation. I seem to remember that as being the only time ever that I got a slap from her. I’m certain Manoj can’t say the same, because he was forever into and out of scrapes, but meek, inoffensive ol’ me sure hadn’t bargained for Mummy’s anger. ‘You will eat toffees on credit?’ she asked in a furious tone. To date I have not forgotten. I use my credit card so sparingly that I get a joyful sms from the credit card company welcoming me with open arms whenever I make a paltry purchase.

I tried off and on to be a model child beginning with trying to be unselfish. That entailed not taking extra portions of dessert but invariably all good intentions flew out the window when the time came. So Manoj and I would ask casually whether there was any dessert left. Mummy would discover right then that she’d eaten far too much and it was impossible to accommodate dessert; resolutely we would refuse to look in the general direction of Jiji (big sis), who we knew would be glaring at us, and would happily tuck into the helping from Mummy’s share. Today’s children suffering from plenty, rarely behave in this fashion but I can’t say I would trade our days of less miraculously becoming more, for anything in the world.

'Think before you speak' was, for me, limited to the odd English lesson on proverbs. On one occasion, a plumber had come to repair a section of the pipe and after he'd finished the job, requested me to give him a note to that effect. I asked him the spelling of his name in English--I think it was Baleshwar-- and he replied with some embarrassment, that he did not know the language . That should have been the last we heard on the subject. But yours truly, not content with one display of utter foolishness, proceeded to narrate the incident over dinner. Peals of laughter could be heard from all present, interspersed with a clever comment from Manoj that I should have asked him what he thought of the US President. I stormed out of the room in a huff that day and barely managed to live it down thereafter.