Saturday 29 June 2013

134. Once upon a time in Shillong!



I would stash away a rupee for him everyday. Though I hated buying his cigarettes, yet I loved him for who he was. In his own affable way, he would ask me to put my arms around his left arm, while he, dressed in the only 'best' black suit he had, would stylishly place his walking stick on the side-walk with his right to avoid hitting a wall or tripping over broken slabs. John wore dark glasses, not because it was in fashion but he was stone blind and I would always walk him from near my school to Police Point, where I would have to buy his cigarette and he would stand at a corner and smoke it away, while I walked off  towards home, after which he would grope his way to the mercy home where he stayed. 
Shillong rekindles fond memories from my school days and they are as fresh like just a moment ago!
Deepak, as far as we heard from people, was a very intelligent boy but who had parents who over-pressurized him with his studies. So, even though every evening, we saw him wearing his signature blue shirt over the same pair of faded grey pants, walking in a sway towards the Laitumkhrah market, we would always start whispering, "Hey see, there is Deepak pogola (mad). Awww..so sad. His parents didn't have to be so hard on him. Hey, you know what? He was excellent in Maths. Tsk, tsk." And we would go home and tell our parents not to put too much of pressure on our heads lest we go mad or something like Deepak.
Then, there was the infamous 'kidnapper'. Not that we knew of any kidnappings done by her but when she would walk down the street dressed in her red coat, a black scarf around her not-so-young-neck, a black pair of trousers and black boots to match her equally black pair of shades and thick open well-taken-care-of-shoulder-length hair, red smudged lips, we would fake being scared to death when she even turned to look elsewhere, maybe never towards us, squealing in the typical school girlie fashion, "Oh dear, the kidnapper is looking right at us. Run." Several years later though, we came to know that she was actually a cleptomaniac and would get into people's homes feigning to make a call from the land-line and get away with small things kept in the living room.
The Professor loved his job and loved his son even more. Every evening, when my friend and I would take a walk from our homes in Lummowrie to Don Bosco Square, we would invariably see the professor with his right arm clasped tightly around the left arm of his strapping young son of 21 years, talking to him about all and sundry, walk as fast as possible on the side-walk towards Dhankheti, deftly averting oncoming pedestrians. The son, oblivious of his surroundings would match steps with his father, while all the time having a  glazed look, hard for us not to notice and sadden us. At this moment, I really want to know what exactly happened to this father-son duo! 
Burrabazar in Shillong would be this famous one-stop market place where we would invariably buy every possible ingredient for the kitchen; from vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, eggs, brooms, locally-crafted knives and soaps. Even bags, shoes, flowers, traditional Khasi ensembles, dogs and what not. And right besides the woman selling neatly cut coconut slivers on a steel plate, would be this man with his guitar and a broad-brimmed hat cocked stylishly,  sometimes strumming happy English tunes and often melancholy Khasi numbers. His over-sized coat, with pockets bulging with kwai (betel-nut), movie tickets, safety-pins and what not, had probably never gone for a wash since the day he put it on. It would have been almost second skin for him had it not been for the equally patchy-with-dirt once-upon-a-time white shirt he wore beneath it. It was a quite a sight to see and I would make sure mother would stop near him for a whole song to complete till we moved on further and deeper into the putrid yet colurful market.
And this was what happened in Shillong, once upon a time......




2 comments:

  1. Nice piece Tinat... remember all the characters now

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    Replies
    1. Babs...Shillong was Shillong...nowhere else will I get it anywhere else

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