Somu - Part I
I hate writing R.I.Ps. To sing like Bob Dylan, “How many R.I.Ps will I have to write, before one writes mine? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind…”
I don’t remember when or where I first met him. A rough estimate should be around twenty two years ago circa 1988.
My earliest memories of my friend are very vague due to two decades of silting of the memory. But I shall still dig down deep to disinter them. His house was across the road. For a small boy of 7 years, this was a major challenge for me. Getting to his house meant crossing the busy road. The house was big, old with a porch and garden. My earliest recollections are centered around this garden, wherefrom he had once picked up a snake mistaking it as a dry twig and brought it inside the house. In the years to follow, this act of bravado would remain his insignia among young boys trying to outsmart each other. Another early first encounters were our discussions on his name! He had a rather long and unique name, 12 letters long. Appended with his father’s name and surname the whole long train would have as many as 35 letters!
During the late 80’s we used to live in Kilburn Colony and he used to live across the road in (I think) Shukla Colony. I remember how he used to be one up on everything. That was the age of learning how to ride a bicycle. My friend could flawlessly ride even adult cycles while I had failed to progress beyond one sided riding (keeping one leg on one pedal and pushing the ground with the other leg). It was also during these times that he did something which only the ‘brave’ lads would venture out to do. He brought home a pup. The initial resistance of his family was of little use towards the boy’s resolve and Tony became an inseparable part of the family.
It was early 90’s that we shifted to Satellite Colony. After living for 2 years in a 900 sq ft apartment, we were desperate to move in the plush 1500 sq ft 3 BHK flats which the company was building for its officers. The flats were allotted at random. My dad’s draw came out at A-16. My friend’s dad got A-18. It was destined that we would be next door neighbours for the next 12 years. Our flat was the first floor; his was the top floor with a common staircase. Stairway to heaven?
No amount of writing can cover these 12 long years. During the years when we were in class IV to X, surely, I must have seen or spoken or referred to him EVERY DAY. Our moms became best buddies, almost like sisters. Our families got intertwined to the extant that we were inseparable. My friend’s elder sister tied rakhi to me every Rakshabandhan. His uncle, aunt, relatives dropped by our house, ours visited theirs. Special dishes, sweets, a unique cuisine prepared on the 3rd floor apartment often found its way to the dining table on the 2nd floor flat, and vice versa. Although, it’s impossible to remember all things which we as kids did together, I shall still cull out a few from this golden era of our lives. It was the best of the times.
During the early years at school, our mothers discussed and implicitly compared every single angle possible to their maternal instincts. Things from shoe sizes to marks obtained in the last Monday Test to the time taken to empty a glass of milk were compared. Almost on all fair comparisons, he outperformed me. “Look at him”, my mother used to scold, “…and look at yourself!!”. He especially beat me fair and square on extra curriculars. I was an extraordinarily dull, undecorated child with no feathers in my cap to be proud of, while my friend played the tabla, was good at sports among other things. However, the memory which is particularly painful is the reading of palms. As young boys, we used to every day invent a new meaning of some line. This line means denotes the number of children you would have! My friend’s palm was full of lines, a most unusual combination of tens of tiny strokes. In fact, whenever he presented his palm for reading, even the most ‘renowned’ soothsayers would frown. His lines were unique, just like him. After learning of his demise, I checked some pics on his social networking page. One snap struck me like Indra’s thunderbolt ripping through my heart. It was a self photograph of his left palm, all five fingers outstretched against the pristine blue backdrop of a lake. What really melted my resolve into tears was the caption beneath which read “Bright Prospects:-)”. The smiley hurts the most.
One particularly interesting episode dates from around Class V or VI days. It was on the occasion of Holi when he earned the famous nickname ‘Chandul’. Talking of names, it surprised me and even made me jealous sometimes at the number of pet names the lad had! His dad called him Shaheb, mom called him Bubla and granny called him something else! Goes to show he was indeed the apple of their eyes, the scion of the bloodline, his father being the only son. Coming back to the incident, some days before Holi my friend had shaved his head for his threading ceremony. On Holi, while we were gamboling in the colors and water, our group was ‘attacked’ by a mad, inebriated hooligan gang of adivasi boys intent on tearing our clothes and playing dirty. In the melee that ensued one of the marauders saw my friend fleeing and gave out a war cry. “Chandul, chandul… chandul ko pakdo” Although dear ‘chandul’ escaped, the name stuck with him :-). We boys discovered later that ‘chandul’ was a local adivasi word for a bald person.
My friend loved Karate and I chugged along with him albeit without the energy or interest or capability to pursue such an avocation. It meant getting up really early, taking out the cycle and pedaling hard in the chilly morning over dew laden barren fields to this drab hall and twisting, jerking, kicking, rolling the body in ways extremely distasteful. No surprises, but I quit within days, even before I got to wear the beginners’ white belt. My friend, in contrast, went the whole hog and was a 2nd dan Black Belt by the time he hung up his Karate shoes.
…to be continued
End of Part I
I don’t remember when or where I first met him. A rough estimate should be around twenty two years ago circa 1988.
My earliest memories of my friend are very vague due to two decades of silting of the memory. But I shall still dig down deep to disinter them. His house was across the road. For a small boy of 7 years, this was a major challenge for me. Getting to his house meant crossing the busy road. The house was big, old with a porch and garden. My earliest recollections are centered around this garden, wherefrom he had once picked up a snake mistaking it as a dry twig and brought it inside the house. In the years to follow, this act of bravado would remain his insignia among young boys trying to outsmart each other. Another early first encounters were our discussions on his name! He had a rather long and unique name, 12 letters long. Appended with his father’s name and surname the whole long train would have as many as 35 letters!
During the late 80’s we used to live in Kilburn Colony and he used to live across the road in (I think) Shukla Colony. I remember how he used to be one up on everything. That was the age of learning how to ride a bicycle. My friend could flawlessly ride even adult cycles while I had failed to progress beyond one sided riding (keeping one leg on one pedal and pushing the ground with the other leg). It was also during these times that he did something which only the ‘brave’ lads would venture out to do. He brought home a pup. The initial resistance of his family was of little use towards the boy’s resolve and Tony became an inseparable part of the family.
It was early 90’s that we shifted to Satellite Colony. After living for 2 years in a 900 sq ft apartment, we were desperate to move in the plush 1500 sq ft 3 BHK flats which the company was building for its officers. The flats were allotted at random. My dad’s draw came out at A-16. My friend’s dad got A-18. It was destined that we would be next door neighbours for the next 12 years. Our flat was the first floor; his was the top floor with a common staircase. Stairway to heaven?
No amount of writing can cover these 12 long years. During the years when we were in class IV to X, surely, I must have seen or spoken or referred to him EVERY DAY. Our moms became best buddies, almost like sisters. Our families got intertwined to the extant that we were inseparable. My friend’s elder sister tied rakhi to me every Rakshabandhan. His uncle, aunt, relatives dropped by our house, ours visited theirs. Special dishes, sweets, a unique cuisine prepared on the 3rd floor apartment often found its way to the dining table on the 2nd floor flat, and vice versa. Although, it’s impossible to remember all things which we as kids did together, I shall still cull out a few from this golden era of our lives. It was the best of the times.
During the early years at school, our mothers discussed and implicitly compared every single angle possible to their maternal instincts. Things from shoe sizes to marks obtained in the last Monday Test to the time taken to empty a glass of milk were compared. Almost on all fair comparisons, he outperformed me. “Look at him”, my mother used to scold, “…and look at yourself!!”. He especially beat me fair and square on extra curriculars. I was an extraordinarily dull, undecorated child with no feathers in my cap to be proud of, while my friend played the tabla, was good at sports among other things. However, the memory which is particularly painful is the reading of palms. As young boys, we used to every day invent a new meaning of some line. This line means denotes the number of children you would have! My friend’s palm was full of lines, a most unusual combination of tens of tiny strokes. In fact, whenever he presented his palm for reading, even the most ‘renowned’ soothsayers would frown. His lines were unique, just like him. After learning of his demise, I checked some pics on his social networking page. One snap struck me like Indra’s thunderbolt ripping through my heart. It was a self photograph of his left palm, all five fingers outstretched against the pristine blue backdrop of a lake. What really melted my resolve into tears was the caption beneath which read “Bright Prospects:-)”. The smiley hurts the most.
One particularly interesting episode dates from around Class V or VI days. It was on the occasion of Holi when he earned the famous nickname ‘Chandul’. Talking of names, it surprised me and even made me jealous sometimes at the number of pet names the lad had! His dad called him Shaheb, mom called him Bubla and granny called him something else! Goes to show he was indeed the apple of their eyes, the scion of the bloodline, his father being the only son. Coming back to the incident, some days before Holi my friend had shaved his head for his threading ceremony. On Holi, while we were gamboling in the colors and water, our group was ‘attacked’ by a mad, inebriated hooligan gang of adivasi boys intent on tearing our clothes and playing dirty. In the melee that ensued one of the marauders saw my friend fleeing and gave out a war cry. “Chandul, chandul… chandul ko pakdo” Although dear ‘chandul’ escaped, the name stuck with him :-). We boys discovered later that ‘chandul’ was a local adivasi word for a bald person.
My friend loved Karate and I chugged along with him albeit without the energy or interest or capability to pursue such an avocation. It meant getting up really early, taking out the cycle and pedaling hard in the chilly morning over dew laden barren fields to this drab hall and twisting, jerking, kicking, rolling the body in ways extremely distasteful. No surprises, but I quit within days, even before I got to wear the beginners’ white belt. My friend, in contrast, went the whole hog and was a 2nd dan Black Belt by the time he hung up his Karate shoes.
…to be continued
End of Part I
Labels: Life and Death, R.I.P.
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