MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES - IV                    

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

-        Graham Greene

 

1. MM @Patna at Saroj Didi's house(1949-50)

Three books recently published.(a) Sahitya Akademi (b) Publications Division & (3) Contact:9868035385

Photo Captions (going down)

2. Bhaiya & Chanda Bhabhi in Unwans home (1949)

3. Bhaiya's hostel friends at B.N. College (1953)

4. Bindu Didi and Sudhanshu Kant Ranjan(1948)

5. Saroj Didi & Virendra Narayan (1948)

6. I with my Chhapara school friends (c. 1954)

7. Rajendra Collegiate School (1947-'49)

2 & 3.

4

5.

6.

                                                                        7.

10.

To resume my story, after Babuji’s return from Patna when his special leave had come to an end in September, 1947, I was admitted to class VII in Rajendra Collegiate School which lay adjacent to Babuji’s Rajendra College. Babuji’s diary entry here says:

Went in morning with MM on a rickshaw to the Rajendra Collegiate School. One Bengali teacher of the school (perhaps, the Headmaster, Shri Ghosh) had come to accompany me there. There was also a ‘Tulsi Jayanti’ function in the school. I was made to preside, and spoke on ‘Ramayan’ for about an hour. (12 Aug).

My home coaching had already begun before I went to Patna with Babuji in his one-year special college leave. A Brahman priest from the Dharmnathji temple, Pt Yagyanand, taught me Sanskrit, with another teacher, Yadunath Prasad, taking care of my regular English, Maths and other school subjects - both at home. As I have said, I spent most of my time with my father when he was studying in his small study room, sitting alongside on his mat and looking at pictures in ‘Kalyan’ or books and magazines which came in Babuji’s post almost daily. And I remember here; it must have been sometime in February, 1946, when the book ‘Achchhi Hindi’ by Shri Ramchandra Varma had just arrived in post for a book-review in ‘Himalaya’ and Babuji had just opened the packet, when I took the book and read it from cover to cover – a book of good usage of Hindi language – but I found myself deeply engrossed in it and had my first lesson of what was good, correct Hindi writing. I was hardly ten years old then and it must have been my precocious interest in Hindi language that made me predisposed towards a keen interest in correct language use.

I have memories galore of my two years(1947-’49) spent in my school at Chhapara – memories of my friends, of my school teachers. I also remember some of my school-mates – Shankar, Yogendra, Naimuddin, Balmukund, as well as some of my teachers – Yadunath Babu, Jitendra Babu, Jagdish Babu, Devnath Babu – our Scout-teacher, with his polished ever-shining shoes - and our Bengali Headmaster, Shri Ghosh, et al. I remember Jittan Babu with his thorny palm-cane which made us remember the Auxiliary verbs in English within a week. All our teachers were excellent teachers and I have great respectful memories of all of them. I also remained in contact with some of these friends even in later life, particularly with Shankar and Yogendra.

                                                                        11.

Recently, my Hindi biography of my father ‘शिवपूजन सहाय: जीवन और साहित्य’ has been published by the Publications Division in which some of these happenings – for instance, his editorial assignment of ‘Himalaya’ and its ultimate closure, and my father’s resignation, etc have been discussed in detail.

It was now January, 1948. And the year had begun with the tragic assassination of Gandhiji.I have a clear memory of that ominous evening. Babuji had come back from his college and was in his study. And I was playing on the road with my neighbouring friends. A stone’s throw from our house to the west was the palatial house of Babu Lallanji, the renowned businessman of the town and our landlord. His was, perhaps, the only house in the town, or in that locality, which had a radiogram. The news of the shooting of Gandhiji was suddenly broadcast on the radio as I was playing around there. At once there was an loud uproar. I only heard from people there that Gandhiji had been shot, and I at once ran to inform my father of the terrible news. Babuji’s diary entry for that momentous event has it:

Jan 30: Just as the evening was darkening into night, sudden news came that a youth named Nathuram Vinayak had shot three bullets into Mahatma Gandhi around 5 in the evening at Birla Bhawan in Delhi, and Mahatmaji fell dead instantly. Luckily for the Muslims the assassin was a Hindu. Had it been at the hands of a Muslim, the whole Muslim population in the country would have been massacred in a day. Even in his death, Gandhiji protected the Muslims.

And then I faintly remembered how in March, 1947, when the pre-partition virulent riots in Noakhali and Bihar were taking place, and Gandhiji was camping in Patna near the big Patna Lawn, holding daily congregations of people, I had gone there with my elder cousins and seen and heard Gandhiji, from a long distance, speaking in his slow, faint voice that was hardly audible.

In all the long college vacations in summer and winter, Babuji used to stay mostly at our village home, and I’ve countless memories of those long periods of our village stays when I used to live with my siblings – my eldest brother AM who’d bolt himself whole day long in our long library room which had gradually filled up chock-a-block with books and journals, and my two elder sisters who loved me most, fulfilling for me my need of motherly care and affection. And then there were my numerous co-villager childhood playmates with whom we would often play cloth-footballs on our chabutara in front of our outer verandah. And we would also, with my village playmates, help in dusting and arranging of books in the library during day hours.

While in the village, we all lived together a life of great happiness and contentment in a large joint family atmosphere. Every morning we would go to the lotus-pond to the north of our village for our morning ablutions, and then, after our breakfast, proceed for bathing in the Kochan river, about a furlong east of the village. Babuji would mostly be engaged with the books and journals in the library, or in conversations with co-villagers who would always crowd round him in our outer’dalan’ (verandah). In the evenings, Babuji generally would be expounding the episodes in the Ramayan or the Mahabharat to the co-viilagers and there would be singing of bhajans with drum and cymbals almost every evening.And in villages and even in smaller towns, those were days of earthen lamps or lanterns, and only on special occasions, of petromax lanterns.

 

                                                                    12.

All through 1945-’46, Babuji had been worrying about the marriage of my two sisters – Sarojini (now about 16) and Vinodini(about 14) - and finally in 1948, he was able to fix their marriage – of Sarojini at Bhagalpur, and of Vinodini (‘Bindu’) at Dumraon. And now in the summer vacation of 1948 both marriages were scheduled to be performed: of Sarojini with Shri Virendra Narayan, a writer and journalist, son of a practising lawyer, Shri Harendra Narayan of Bhagalpur, and of Vinodini with Shri Sudhanshukant Ranjan, a graduate son from the Muntazim Estate family of Dumraon (where Babuji had worked as a home tutor of the would-be bridegroom’s father when my father was a teacher in Ara).

In his diary for 1948, Babuji notes that we had all been in our village during the summer vacation (from 18 Apr. to 30 Jun). Unfortunately, during the period of the marriage ceremony preparations and performance, Babuji remained under seriously ill with typhoid fever, with little or no proper medical treatment available. These diary entries tell that story:

Apr. 23: It was lunar eclipse tonight, and became bed-ridden with fever. Just when the ceremony of ‘Kanyadan’ (giving away of daughter in marriage) was to take place, I was down with fever. I have high fever and severe bodyache all over. (I write this diary a month and half later. The diary of Apr. 23 right upto Jun.7 was written on Jun.7). Apr. 26: Very high fever – bodyache, extreme thirst, suffering. Even loss of consciousness at times. Giddiness most of the time. Unaware of all that’s happening around me. Apr. 27: Barat came today. I was carried on an easy chair to the ‘Mandap’ (wedding canopy) for the ‘Kanyadan’. Apr. 28: A doctor from Nihalpur came and gave me enema. After ‘Bidai’ Sarojini went on a car and Mangal went with her…May 21: The Bhagalpur maariage was fixed because of Benipuriji. That gratitude can never be recompensed in this life. [Here he expresses in long entries his deep regret for not being able to participate fully in the celebrations and give personal welcome to the large number of literary figures who came on the occasion in the village home to bless the couple.]

May 22: Barat from Dumraon came. I’m still very weak from my illness. Can’t walk properly. But I was able to perform the ‘Kanyadan’ and other rituals properly and well this time. The famous humour-write Shri G.P. Shrivastava had come in the barat. I came under heavy debt in these two marriages, but everything went off well. May 29: Tomorrow I’ve to go to Buxar to get part of my sold farm lands registered in the court. May 31: In the Registry court. The Registrar – a Muslim officer – made me sit alongside him on a chair on the Registrar’s dias and readily signed the three registry documents for me.

With the marriage of his two daughters in two good families, with good husbands, Babuji was now in great relief. But now he wanted his eldest son, AM, also married soon. AM (now  19) had just cleared his Matriculation examination - after failing in two earlier attempts - and was soon to get admitted in Intermediate at H.D.Jain College, Ara. In one diary entry Babuji wrote:

June 10: Night before yesterday’s, I saw in a dream AM mother (my late wife), dressed in pure white sari and a round red ‘sindoor’ mark on her forehead, stood smiling before me. Her hair appeared to have grown white, but the vermillion mark was round and aglow. Her body,too, appeared to be effulgent with light. She then called ‘Badka Babua’ (AM) before me who was wearing only a vest. Pointing to him, that ‘devi’ asked me –‘When will his queen come in your house?” Absolutely surprised, my eyes suddenly opened. I felt, my wife was now quite worried for ‘Babua’s’ marriage. [Incidentally, everyone called my brother by this monicker ‘babua’ only!]

Marriages in our joint family of our cousins in my generation had already been going on. My youngest uncle’s second son, Manoranjan had just been married to the second daughter of Munshi Navjadik Lal of Chilkahar (Ballia). Munshiji had worked with my father and Niralaji in Calcutta in the early 20s as one of the editors of the famous satirical Hindi weekly ‘Matwala’, and after Munshiji’s death the family was in severely indigent condition. My father, as a gesture of favour and compassion had got that marriage solemnised without any dowry. (All marriages in my father’s own family have been dowryless.) In fact, I’ve vivid memories of that marriage of my elder ‘Lala Bhaiya’ (Manoranjan), because I was the ‘shahbala’ with him in the bridegroom’s palki. Sacks of rice and other provisions (along with monetary help given) had already been transported from our village on bullock carts and on boats across the river Ganga to the bride’s village to help in the marriage provisions.

The very next year, AM’s marriage was fixed in the same family with Munshi Navjadik Lal’s third daughter, Chanda, and the same rigmarole was repeated – again with me as the groom’s ‘shahbala’ – a veritable replication of the earlier marriage, again dowryless, with provisions for the marriage transported in the same way across the river to the bride’s home in Chilakhar.Babuji wrote in his diary:

1949: Jun.6. All three bullock-carts of AM’s barat proceed to Kotawan ghat for crossing the river. After crossing the river by the road at Ujiar ghat we camped in a nearby grove till the bullock carts also arrived. The next was the night camp at Narahi. It was a great delight to sleep in a moonlit night in the open. Next morning we bathed in the Saryu river and reached Chilkahar by the afternoon. The Barat ‘welcome’ was by the evening and the marriage was solemnised by midnight.

I can still visualize very vividly all those events, the great festivity and the great merriment, and my happiness to have accompanied my new ‘bhabhi’ in her palki, and to have once more a mother figure in my home, because Chanda Bhabhi, indeed, loved me truly as her own son as long as she lived with us – which was not, alas, to be for very long.

After the timely and satisfactory completion of marriages of his three children and my school education going well in Chhapara, Babuji was now much relieved of his worries on these fronts. But bereft of proper and good care and nourishment in the absence of my deceased mother, Babuji’s health was rapidly declining.At one place in his diary he writes:

The thought of quitting college lecture work is getting firmer everyday. Mentally also, I think, I am prepared for it. Long speeches in lectures cause dizziness now. After repeated lectures, the giddiness increases; I start stumbling while walking back from my lectures; it seems as if I might fall. Hence, it’s best to quit this job in good time now, otherwise some untoward incident might happen someday. I might even lose consciousness and fall down. (8 Oct.,1949)

He was experiencing marked increase in frequency of urination and spells of giddiness – both symptoms (as I know know) of diabetes and high blood pressure (hypertension). The frequency of travelling between Chhapara and Patna, as well as other places, also created its own pressures on his failing health. And it was in this situation that efforts had started for his shift to Patna in a government job as Secretary of Bihar Rashtra Bhasha Parishad. (I have written in details about it in my recently published Hindi biography of my father.)

                                                13.

In July,’49, I had been shifted to Patna to live with my elder sister Saroj Didi where my brother-in-law Virendra Narayan was working as Assistant Editor of the political weekly Janata and the Hindi literary monthly ‘Nai Dhara’, both under the editorship of Shri Ramvriksh Benipuri, who had actually helped so much in my sister’s marriage to Virenji. AM was soon to be admitted in H.D.Jain College in Ara making occasional visits to our village home where Chanda Babhi was now looking after the village farming affairs. I had been admitted into the Patna Collegiate School in class IX. As Babuji writes:

I took MM to the Patna Collegiate School and met its Headmaster Satish Babu with Dikshitji. There I met MM’s teachers – Rudraji, Pt Janardan Jha ‘Pankaj’and Pt Rajendra Dubey who is MM’s class teacher for class IX, and after leaving MM under their charge, returned to Sammelan Bhawan. (5 Jul.,1949)

Efforts were continuing in Bihar Govt for Babuji’s appointment as Secretary of the newly created Bihar Rashtrabhasha Parishad and he got the first letter in Chhapara on 12 Dec.’49 intimating him about his ensuing appointment. In his diary entry he wrote:

The Bihar Govt wants to appoint me as the Secretary of the Rashtrabhasha Parishad. In my talk, I clearly told Shri J.C. Mathur (ICS, Education Secretary, Bihar) that I’m not interested in the raise in my salary, because I can easily earn as much or more by my literary writings; but my real worry is that I can thus pursue my literary mission of serving Hindi literature and getting valuable scholarly volumes published by that institution (14)….Applied for three months’ leave from the college (26)… Got relieved from college. My heart filled with overwhelming compassion for the students as I took leave from them.(29)…Felt deeply emotional as I left Chhapara by the midnight train.(31 Dec.)

  

                                                                        14.

Our final shift to Patna was now the beginning of the end for my father’s long perilous life of ceaseless struggle, exploitation and penury  – as also his final shift to the centre stage of literary eminence. I have told that story in my recently published Hindi biography of my father शिवपूजन सहाय:जीवन और साहित्य (and also in my English version of his compiled autobiography which is also shaortly to be published).

With this shift to Patna, I had slowly been shedding off my childhood and entering into my adolescence. Living with my elder sister Sarojini, and frequently visiting my village home where Chanda Bhabhi showered her ample love and affection on me – I had discovered in both of them my ‘mother figure’ which had been lost and yet deeply embedded in my childhood consciousness. Youngest in my generation of siblings and cousins, I had a surfeit of love and affection by all my elders in the family which had given me a childhood of great happiness and bliss.

In my retrospection, I now feel that my father, in his fraternal love, had been singularly guilty of crass negligence towards both my mother and my new Bhabhi, Chanda, who also was a pure divine being like my mother. I strongly feel now that it was on the envious insistence of my vile uncles and vicious aunts that my father forced both my mother and my Chanda Bhabhi to live in that remote village with no nearby medical facilities, which led to their tragic untimely deaths, in nearly identical circumstances, causing great disastrous consequences in our family.

Babuji had joined Bihar Rashtrabhasha Parishad (BRBP) as Secretary on 20 July, 1950, but he was living alone in a small room in the Bihar Hindi Sahitya Sammelan (BHSS) in Kadamkuan in Patna. In May, 1951, he was allotted a govt quarter in Bailey Road in which he lived only for a very short period of a few months. It was during this time that Chanda Bhabhi came to Patna some time in June and also stayed in Babuji’s quarter till October. AM also, meanwhile, had joined B.N. College in Patna for his English Honours studies and was living in its hostel.

In his pressure of work, in organizing and setting up the activities of BRBP, Babuji’s health was deteriorating further, and soon due to his aggravated diabetes, by July, 1952, he was affected by tuberculosis with occasional vomits of blood. I had passed my Matric exams in 1952 and had been admitted to my I.A. couse at Patna College. To make matters worse, I met a bicycle accident, fracturing my femur bone which necessitated critical surgery (on Sep 2)by Dr B. Mukhopadhyay. This had made me miss my college attendance for months which had resulted in my not being sent up for my I.A. exams in 1954.

Our shift from Chhapara in 1950 was thus a transition from my childhood to adolescence – to a time when ‘innocence was closing his eyes’, when that glorious time of childhood had suddenly vanished – a time, in William Blake’s immortal words, when one could -             

…see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

 

15.

I had started this story of my childhood experiences with memories of the death of my mother in my infancy. That doleful experience of deprivation of motherly love hung constantly like a dark cloud on the horizon of my entire childhood spent in Chhapara, in spite of its overwhelming compensation by my father’s constant care and affection, and by the love and care of my two doting sisters and finally, towards its end, by the overly gentle love and affection of my Chanda Bhabhi. And now at the critical juncture of my journey from my childhood into my puberty I want to recall - in great sorrow - my second crisis at the beginning of my crucial age of adolescence of a loss of ‘motherly affection and care’ in the sudden tragedy of the passing away of Chanda Bhabhi, who was like a divine reincarnation of my own lost mother.

There had been an upheaval caused by the shift from Chhapara to Patna, augmented by the marriages of my siblings and their moving away to different places, and the new pressures and complications generated by Babuji’s change of vocation from teaching to secretarial office work – an assignment that required a lot of foundation-laying and logistical organization – further complicated by the rapid deterioration in his  health leading to the onset of tuberculosis, and so forth. In December, 1952, for reasons of the problem in commuting from the govt quarter in Bailey Road (4-5 kms away), Babuji had moved into a small flat in the premises of BHSS in Kadamkuan itself, where BRBP had newly been situated. When my father’s health condition deteriorated further, he was moved to my sister, Saroj’s house in Bihari Sao Lane, Langartoli, more than a km to the east of BHSS. This was also the time (Feb.) when I had to appear for my Matric exams which I had passed in April in IInd division. I had still been living with my sister when my father was brought there during his serious illness for a couple of months. And as ill-luck would have it,  just during those days, I met a bicycle accident on Aug 24, fracturing my femur thigh bone and had to undergo  a 6-hour long surgical operation in PMCH (on Sep.2) in which the broken thigh bone had to be pinned, and Virenji had to go to Calcutta to bring that pin. I was put under plaster cast chest downwards and came out of it only by October-end.

It was now 1953. I had joined Patna College for my Intermediate studies. Babuji had recovered from his serious illness, and resumed his work at BRBP, and now we were all living in our new small flat in BHSS. It was just then, on April 6, that a telegram came from my uncle at Unwans that Chanda Bhabhi (ChBh) was gravely ill, and was in a serious condition. At once, I rushed to my village and found ChBh’s condition really very critical. Immediately, next morning, I arranged for a palki to carry her to Buxar – 15 kms north, then the sub-divisional town with a govt hospital - for proper medical treatment. I accompanied the palki carrying ChBh on a bicycle all the way. AM and his friend Gauri Shankar, and a few others from our village also had joined there. ChBh’s illness was diagnosed as meningitis in a very critical stage. The doctor advised against moving the patient to Patna because of her serious condition. Whatever best treatment that was possible there was given to ChBh, but she expired on the evening of April 15. I can never forget that ominous night with my inconsolable brother almost insane with grief.

Babuji’s condition, too, had worsened in Patna when he had heard the news of ChBh’s death. The very next day, on April 16, he was admitted into the T.B. Hospital in Patna next to the G.P.O. building in a very serious condition with occasional vomits of blood. He remained in that hospital under intensive treatment for the next 10 months.

I now think and reflect on these circumstances which had led to Babuji’s shift from Chhapara college to BRBP, Patna, and all the adverse situations that had developed in the family during this period since 1950, and feel that had Babuji not shifted from Chhapara to Patna, and had he allowed ChBh to stay with him in Chhapara, continuing with his college job, things would have taken a turn for the better for the family. But destiny has its own inexorable designs which play out with their relentless inevitability, making life flow like a straw in a stream.

Fitzgerald puts it in his Rubaiyat in a verse:

It’s all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and stays,

And one by one in the Closet lays.

                                                     ooo

All photos & Text © Dr BSM Murty

 

MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES - III                     

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

-        Graham Greene

                                    8.

After the Summer Vacation spent in our village, Babuji had returned to Chhapara. On the Great War front, Japan had surrendered on 15 August, 1945 after the atomic holocaust and the Indian Freedom Movement’s negotiations were continuing in a hard bargaining with the British govt for an interim power-transfer. Dr Rajendra Prasad and all other Congress leaders had been released from prison after their three-year incarceration during the ‘Quit India’ Movement. While in prison, Rajendra Babu had completed his Hindi ‘Atmakatha’ which was soon to be published and released in the incoming Congress session at Meerut. A festschrift volume ‘Abhinandan Granth’ was also in preparation in Bihar to be presented to Dr Rajendra Prasad, and because of his long and intimate association with Shivpoojan Sahay, he wanted him to edit it thoroughly before publication. The college authorities had granted my father one year’s special leave for this purpose beginning from August, 1945. At August-end, Babuji went to our village home where he stayed with all of us till October-end.

For the next two months, Babuji was at our village home. Some of his diary entries evoke memories of those days spent with Babuji in our village:

1945: Aug. 2. Work of subject-wise arrangement of books began in the library … A ‘Charkha’ school was opened today in my village under the tutorship of a co-villager trained at Meerut (30/8)… Explained in the evening Surdas’s verses to my co-villgers in the Thakurbari (31/8) …Sessions of ‘Ramkatha’ also began from tonight (4/9)…Two ‘Sarangi’ player ‘Babas’ from Gorakhpur came today. Their grandfather used to come in the time of my parents (10/9)…’Ramkatha’ continues as usual with the explications in Bhojpuri for their convenience (19/9)…Chanting of ‘Valmiki Ramayan’ took place (9/10)…’Ramkatha’ continued as usual. I narrated the story in ‘Hanuman Natak’. The erotic contexts caused hesitancy in some places. But why did Hanumanji write about the the sex-episodes of Ram and Janaki, who are the creators of this world?(6/11)¹.    

On October 27, Babuji left with me for Patna staying in the guest house of Pustak Bhandar which had now shifted (from Laheriasarai) to its new location at Govind Mitra Road. Its proprietor Ramlochan Sharan had also moved with his family to Patna in the same premises, now known as ‘Himalaya Press’. Preparations had been going on for bringing out a literary monthly magazine ‘Himalaya’ with Shivpoojan Sahay and Ramvriksh Benipuri as editors. Soon a house was rented nearby in Machhuatoli where the two editors were to stay. A common kitchen was run for the inmates by a cook.  With Babuji and myself, Benipuriji also now lived there with his two sons, and I immediately struck a merry friendship with Jittin (Jitendra), his younger son who was just a little older than me. A few month later, in July 1946, Benipuriji took us both – me and Jittin (his moniker) - to get us admitted into the local St Joseph Convent School. Daily a servant would take us there and after school hours would bring us back to the Himalaya Press premises where we would spend our time playing with Shyam Babu (Seeta Sharan), younger son of Ramlochan Sharan, the proprietor of Pustak Bhandar, before we returned late in the evenings to our Machhuatoli house. Some of my father’s diary entries record the details of this period:

1945: Oct.-Nov. A plan has been drawn for the publication of a monthly literary journal ‘Himalaya’, with myself and Benipuri as editors, with every issue published as a royal-size hard-bound book (1/11)… Benipuri’s younger son, Jitendra, and MM are now friends. MM shows his proclivity for singing and drawing pictures. Throughout the day he keeps drawing pictures. He has great interest in making drawings, and while drawing he also keeps crooning – ‘Tu Ram-bhjan kar prani, Teri do din ki jindagani’(Keep chanting the name of Ram, because this life is only of two days) (30/10) …On two occasions, MM started crying inconsolably because of his feeling of lonesomeness. A motherless child, he craves for the loss of his mother’s affection, even though I always shower him with my love. Even while his mother was alive, he would only like to stay with me, but how can a father take the place of a child’s mother? (11/11)… Considering his talent in art and music, I wish I could have sent him to Shantiniketan for his education, but where are the resources? (13/11)…I left with MM by the morning train for Gaya for the annual Gaya District Hindi conference under the chairmanship of ‘Dwij’Ji (14/12). [In Gaya Babuji had also taken me to the Mannulal Library there, famous for its collection of rare books and MSS.]

Most of my time after my school hours was now spent in the press premises where in a couple of thatched-roof rooms was situated the editorial office of ‘Himalaya’ and ‘Balak’. Jittin and Shyamji would be my playmates and we would often go and play in the upstairs hall where there were mounds of press paper-cuttings for our jumping and bouncing. I would also wander round in the premises where in a large hall the large printing ‘flat’ machines kept grinding ceaselessly, or where the the book-binding section was. Quite often I also went with Shyamji into his house located in the same premises where his mother would feed us sweets and snacks. Babuji records the main events of the first half of the year in the following diary entries:

1946: Jan. 24. Bought the ‘Naughty’ shoe for MM. The MS of Rajendra Babu’s ‘Atmakatha’ was given for composing for the first issue of ‘Himalaya’. I read the beginning parts which were to be published without any editing (21/1)…Got remunerations sent to contributors for their articles published in the first number of ‘Himalaya’. Rs 100 to Rajendra Babu and 50 to Acharya Narendra Dev (11/2)…Went with MM to B.N. College in the ‘Harishchandra Sabha’ seminar (31/3)…The pressure of work in the office is so heavy that I have to work from 10 to 8 in the evening(5/4)…Left in morning with MM by steamer in Shivkumar’s barat (son of my sister-in-law’s husband) who’s to be married to Jayprakash Babu’s niece, and met the great revolutionary leader of the 1942 ‘Quit India’ movement. I hugged him in the ‘Milni’ at the wedding ceremony (18/4)…Preparations are on for the grand welcome of JP. 42 gates have been erected in his honour. He arrived in Patna with his wife Prabhavatiji by a motor launch. He was smothered under loads of flowers. There was a massive procession on which flowers were being showered from an airplane. A meeting with thousands in the audience took place in the lawn where Dinkar recited his poem on Jayprakash (21/4)2… Editing of ‘Rajendra Abhinandan Granth’(RAG) started from today(5/5)…Wrote a letter (enclosing a reply-paid envelope) to Shri Hazari Prasad Dwivedi (Shantiniketan) for admission there of AM and MM (10/6).

 The editorial work on the monthly literary journal ‘Himalaya’, on Rajendra babu’s ‘Atmakatha’ and the ‘Rajendra Abhinandan Granth’ was going on apace simultaneously. Babuji’s diary entries in 1946 when I was staying with him in the Machhuatoli house are full of accounts of the heavy pressure of work causing health issues: “Felt tired with body ache, and giddiness; with restlessness throughout the night (25/5).” Yet there was no respite. The fourth number of Himalaya had come out in June with early chapters of Rajendra Babu’s ‘Atmakatha’being serialised in them in their unedited form.

On Aug. 1, Babuji took me along to Suryapura (near Ara) on invitation fom Raja Radhika Raman, the famous novelist of ‘Ram Rahim’ which had been edited by Babuji and published in 1936 from Pustak Bhandar, Laheriasarai, when Babuji was still working there. We stayed in Suryapura for five days as Raja Saheb’s guest in his ‘Udyan Bhawan’. I was now about 10 years old and have vivid memories of that visit. Babuji’s wrote in his diary: “Had dinner with Raja Saheb in his Udyan Bhawan situated by a pond. MM was also with me (5/8)”.

That was, indeed, the most exciting  experience in a child’s life, born in a thatched hut and now growing in a thatched-roof house in Chhapara or Unwans. I have written that memoir in my book ‘Darpan Me We Din’. Here is an excerpt from that memoir:

बाबूजी पटना में रह कर ‘हिमालय’ का सम्पादन कर रहे थे। सूर्यपुरा राजा साहब के बुलावे पर वे अक्सर सूर्यपुरा जाया करते थे, और उस बार मुझे भी वहाँ साथ ले गए थे। उस छोटी उम्र में किसी रियासत में जा कर मेहमान कि हैसियत से रहना एक ऐसा सुखद अनुभव था जिसका स्मृति में टंक जाना स्वाभाविक है। बाबूजी के साथ उस वक्त जो बचपना लगाव था उसमें उनसे बड़े किसी आदमी की छवि मेरे मन में शायद बन ही नहीं सकती थी। और बाबूजी का प्रभाव और उनकी व्यस्तता देख कर मुझे नहीं लगता था उनसे बड़ा कोई और भी हो सकता है। लेकिन सूर्यपुरा जाकर वहाँ कि रियासत और शान-शौकत देख कर भी मेरे इस खयाल में किसी खास तरमीम की जरूरत मुझे नहीं महसूस हुई, क्योंकि मैंने अपनी बचपन की उन आँखों से यह देखा कि उस रियासत का जो राजा था, जिसके चारों ओर नौकर-चाकर हाली-मुहाली लगे रहते थे, वह खुद बाबूजी को कितनी इज्जत बक्श रहा था।  मुझे अच्छी तरह याद है, सुंदर सरोवर के किनारे बने महल की वह खुली दालान जहां बड़े-बड़े चांदी के थालों में केवल सब्जियों के बने बीसों तरह के व्यंजन परस कर लाए गए थे।  और खुद राजा साहब एक-एक व्यंजन की  विशेषता बताते हुए हमें खिला रहे थे।  उस सारी शान-शौकत और तामझाम के बीच भी मुझे कभी ऐसा नहीं लगा कि मेरे सामने किसी रियासत का कोई राजा बैठा है। बाबूजी से हँसता-बतियाता वह उनकी ही उम्र का व्यक्ति मुझे बिल्कुल बाबूजी जैसा ही लगा – उतना ही सीधा-सादा, स्नेह-भरा और बाबूजी की तरह ही एक बड़ा आदमी। उन दोनों व्यक्तियों को आमने-सामने देख कर ही शायद बचपन के मेरे मन पर यह अमिट छाप अंकित हो गई कि धन-दौलत से भी बहुत बड़ी चीज होती है बड़प्पन।

FN 1. The diary entries during these village stays are also filled with details of his religious discourses and his various writings on village reforms generally sent to various journals for publication, later collected in ‘Grm-Sudhar’.

FN 2. My English translation of this poem on JP by Dinkar is published in my collection of English poems TWO-WAY MIRROR (2020) Which can be read on my blog - murtymuse.blogspot.com.

 

                                                9.

Babuji’s one-year special leave was now coming to an end, and we were back in Chhapara by 19 Aug.’46. I got a school Transfer Certificate from St Joseph’s Convent school in Patna and  soon theafter was admitted in class VII at the Rajendra Collegiate School which lay close by the Rajendra College. Every day now I used to walk with my father, under his umbrella, to my school. After my classes were over, I would go to the staff room in Rajendra College, or if Babuji was in a class, I would slowly walk to and stand outside the lecture hall’s main door in such a way that only Babuji could see me, and not the students. When he saw me, he would come out of the lecture hall as soon as the class was over and holding my hand take me to the staff room. Every one in the staff room – Profs Dwij, Murlidharji, Virendra Shrivastava et al would hug me and give me their love. And then I would walk back with Babuji to our house by the same half-kilometer route through the fields where vegetables grew. This remained our daily routine on all week days as long as I was at school in Chhapara during the next two years. Babuji writes: “Everyday MM, after his school, walks back with me. As soon as his classes are over, he comes to the college and walks back to home with me. He would even eat and sleep only with me (29 Apr, ’47)”.

Because of my mother’s death, the household affairs were now managed largely by our maternal aunts and uncles. The presence in our house was never less than a dozen relatives. My old Mausi (maternal aunt) ‘Badi Didi’ was the virtual housekeeper. I remember, there was a servant, Bhagawat, who had been with my father since his Kashi days (1930-). Because of the absence of my mother (homemaker), and the crowd of ever-present relatives, Babuji was always hand to mouth. At one place he writes: “Today I’ve only three paisas with me. For one paisa took pan in the evening. And now only two paise are left (25 Oct.’49).

But first, here I’d recollect one incident of my providential escape from drowning. During the monsoon rains, the Ganga river – 2-3 kms south of the town, with the Dharmnath temple (on the same read, 100 yards east of our house) at its sothern edge – is enormously flooded to reach the broad platform just behind the temple. At the end of the platform are 4-5 steps down to the ground below, which naturally get submerged in the flood waters.

During the rainy season that temple-platform became a crowded bathing ghat for the worshippers at the temple. One day Bhagawat also took me along for a bath on that temple ghat. By an unlucky chance – I must have been 5 or 6 years old – in a moment’s inattention I stepped into the river water and was momentarily drowning. I vividly remember how I saw grey water lighted all round my open eyes without realizing that I was accidentally drowning. Luckily, Bhagwat saw me drowning and at once pulled me out of the water saving my life which was nearly lost that day. He was very nervous and apologetic for his negligence as he brought me home and narrated the whole incident to ‘Badi Didi’ (our old widow aunt).  Somehow Babuji later came to know about it and I was very strongly reprimanded; and thenceforth never allowed to go for a bath in the Ganga river with the others.

Babuji, in his diaries, has often written about many picnics held at the river bank in which he participated with his colleagues, but from that day visit to the Ganga river for me was strictly forbidden. And then I remember the day when everyone in the family had gone for a bath in the river, which in the dry season usually withdraws about 2-3 kms south to a point where two other rivers, Saryu and Ghaghra join it, and I stood holding the iron bars of the window in our southernmost hall, crying my heart out, with only Babuji staying with me in the house.

This drowning incident must have happened during the Monsoon months of 1942-’43, or, may be, a little later; because there is another memory associated with the flood waters which usually came right up to the hedge of the reeds fencing our little back garden. This other memory must be precisely of August, 1942 – when I was hardly 5 years old – and it was the time of the great ‘Quit India’ movement for India’s independence. Here are some relevant entries from Babuji’s diary first:

1942: [Aug-Sep.] Aug 9. Heard that Gandhiji & others have been arrested in Bombay, and also Rajendra Babu in Patna…Today only Muslim students (members of Muslim League) came to the college (11/8)…Rail tracks have been uprooted & several stations are burnt down. The steamer service is off, telephone & telegraph wires cut everywhere…Chhapara station was looted today in day time, and an Englishman was brutally thrashed…British forces, about 150 as reported, arrived in Chhapara. The whole town is in fear…With my children I’m under great stress…Devnandan and Lallan came from the village to take the children to the village home with them… All my children went by boat to Ara. It has caused silence in the house…The number of Hindu students coming in the classes is minimal. But all Muslim students come in full strength as is the directive of the Muslim League. (11 Aug-22 Sep,’42)

So it must have been around Aug 13-14. I remember standing at the window in our southern room holding the iron bars of the window – looking at the flooded river just touching the reed-hedge boundary of our small garden. And what did I see floating in the wildly swirling flood waters? – Corpses with crows and vultures sitting on them and pecking into the bloated bellies of the corpses! Not one, not two – but quite a few floating one after another with the waves in the river with scavenging birds sitting on them. And then I was told they were corpses of Britishers killed by ramapaging mobs at various places in the district. I was too small a child to understand the full implications of the sight, but it did frighten and sicken me much. And then, I also remember, seeing British troops with machine guns trained on, and passing by on military trucks on the road in front of our house. I remember seeing them – through the chinks in our closed front doors - throughout the day pass by in lorries and trucks with theit machine guns trained on tripods. I still shudder to recall those days. It was soon thereafter that my uncle had arrived to take us to the safety of our village home by the river route.

Below: The only photo of my childhood days taken around 1950 by my first Kodak Baby Brownie camera - me standing in the Kochan river of my village UNWANS. More such photos can be seen on my photo blog -MURTYRAMA, which is a purely personal & private family blog of a photo gallery where I also write about my long career in photography.

                                                

                                                                    [To be continued.]

All photos & Text © Dr BSM Murty

 

दर्पण में वे दिन

मंगलमूर्त्ति

 

निराला की स्मृति

बच्चनजी ने अपनी आत्मकथा का नाम ‘क्या भूलूं, क्या याद करूं’ रखा, जिसके शीर्षक आगे के खंडों में बदलते गय,  लेकिन असल धागा वही रहा जिसपर यादों के मनके गुंथे गये । वे कवि थे, और वह मूल शीर्षक भी एक सुंदर कविता–पक्ति जैसा ही था । लेकिन यादों के गलियारों में निकलिए तो फिर वो गलियां खुद–ब–खुद आपको अपनी भूलभुलैया में ले चलेंगी, और आप उन्हीं में खोतेे चले जायंगे । आपका हाथ थामेे वे स्वयं आपको एक गली से दूसरी गली में ले जायेंगी । ‘क्या भूलूं, क्या याद करूं’– यह आप नहीं तय कर सकेंगेे, और आलम वहां कुछ भूलने का नहीं होगा, बल्कि एक–एक कर यादों की कइ–कर्ई खिड़कियां आप–से–आप खुलती चली जायेंगी । क्योंकि यादों की खिड़कियां सायास कुछ भूलने के लिए नहीं खुलतीं, वे तो आपकी आंखों के सामने बीते दिनों की तस्वीरें दिखाने लगती हैं, और यादों के उस अलबम के सफ़े एक–एक कर आपकी आंखों के सामने खुलते चले जाते हैं।

तो यादों के अलबम का एक ऐसा ही सफ़ा आज मेरी आंखों के सामने खुल गया है । सचमुच, बचपन की यादें भी बचपन जैसी ही कोमल और लुभावनी होती हैं । जैसे एक यह तस्वीर- आलू और मूली के घूप–सने खेतों के बीच की पतली पगडंडियों पर चलते हुए, अपने पिता के साथ, उनके छाते की छांह में,राजेंद्र कॉलेजियट, अपने स्कूल जाना, जहां बगल में, छपरा के राजेंद्र कॉलेज में वे हिंदी के प्रोफेसर थे । लेकिन तब उससे भी पहले की एक याद उभर आती है, जब मैं केवल पांच साल का था । मेरी दुनिया बस लाड़–प्यार, खेलकूद और शोर–शरारत की दुनिया थी । मैंं यह भी नहीं जानता था कि मेरी मां डेढ़ साल पहले गुजर चुकी थी । घर में बस मामी, मौसी और बुआ की ही पहचान मुझे मिली थी । पिता की सबसे छोटी मातृ–विहीन संतान होने के कारण घर–भर में मेरे लिए प्यार की ऐसी बहुतायत थी कि पता ही नही चला कि प्यार की सबसे प्यारी मूरत मां कैसी होती है, और वह कुछ ही दिन पहले मुझे छोड कर हमेशा के लिए वहां चली गई थी, जहां से कभी कोई लौट कर नहीं आता । पिता तो मुझको सदा अपनी सुखद छांह में ही रखते थे, पर यों भी घर में मैं एक बेताज बादशाह से कुछ कम नहीं था ।

बात उन्हीं दिनों की है जब एक दिन निरालाजी अचानक हमारे यहां आये । कॉलेज की किसी साहित्यिक गोष्ठी में बाबूजी ने उन्हें आमंत्रित किया था । ऐसे अतिथि हमारे यहां बराबर आते रहते थे । मैंने देखा, रिक्शे से एक लंबा–चौड़ा व्यक्ति जिसके माथे पर घनी–लंबी काली–काली लटें लहरा रही थी, उतरा और लपक कर उसने बाबूजी को अपनी बांहों में भर लिया । मैं भी वहीं था । फिर दोनों हाथों से मुझे उठाकर प्यार किया और अपने कंधे पर बैठा लिया । मुझे लगा सहसा मैं किसी पहाड़ की चोटी पर पहुंच गया और गिरने के डर से मैंने जोर से दोनों मुट्ठियों में कसकर उनकी लंबी लटें पकड़ ली । फिर तो शिवजी और निरालाजी के उस मिलन का मैं एक दर्शक ही नहीं, प्रतिभागी भी बन गया । बाबूजी के उस छोटे–से अध्ययन–कक्ष में, जो हमारी बैठक के सिरे पर था, जिसमें निरालाजी और बाबूजी की बैठकी हो रही थी, उस छोटे–से कमरे में जाने की खुली परमिट बस मुझे ही थी । लेकिन मुझको यह कहां पता था कि अभी–अभी जिस पहाड़ की चोटी पर में बैठा था, वही आधुनिक हिंदी कविता का एवरेस्ट - महाकवि निराला थे ।

उसी दिन की एक मजेदार घटना के विषय में मेरी बड़ी बहन सरोज दीदी ने बाद में बताया । आज सोचता हूं, उस दिन मेरी बहन सरोज से मिलकर उनको कैसा लगा होगा। लेकिन यह तो दूसरी सरोज थी, शिवजी की बेटी सरोज, मेरी सरोज दीदी । उसीने मुझको इधर हाल में उस दिन की उस घटना के विषय में हंसते–हंसते बताया । सरोज दीदी की हंसी रुकती नहीं थी और उसकी बातें उसकी हंसी में से जलेबियों की तरह छन–छनकर निकल रही थीं ।

निरालाजी सुबह–सुबह हमारे यहां पहुंचे थे । शौचकर्म का समय था । तैयार होकर फिर तुरत कॉलेज की सभा में जाना था । हमारे आंगन के पिछले बरामदे में शौचालय था । बरामदे में ही पानी का नल लगा था । वहीं एक पानी–भरा लोटा रखा था । निरालाजी ने वह लोटा उठाया और शौचालय में दाखिल हो गये । कुछ देर बाद - दीदी की हंसी अब रुकती नहीं थी, और उसी में वह बताने लगी  - शौचालय के अंदर से ही निरालाजी ने जोर से पुकारा - ‘‘शिवजी, शिवजी’’! बाबूजी वहीं थे । निरालाजी अंदर से ही बोले- ‘‘अरे, इस लोटे में क्या था, इसमें तो चने–ही–चने भरे हैं’’ ।

बात यह हुई थी कि बाबूजी के नौकर भागवत ने उस लोटे में रात में ही फूलने के लिए चने डाल रखे थे । लोटा वहीं नल के पास एक टब पर रखा था । निरालाजी ने पानी से भरा लोटा देखा, उसे उठाया, और दाखिल–दफ़्तर हो गये । फिर तो, नतीजा सामने था । भागवत दौड़ा, जल्दी से दूसरे लोटे में पानी लेकर दिया, और तब निराला जी फ़ारिग होकर बाहर निकले । फिर तो सारे घर में हंसी की धारा बहने लगी- पर होठों में दबी–दबी ही, और शिवजी के साथ निरालाजी के अट्टहास तो जोर–जोर से घर में गूंजने लगे । बाद मे तैयार होकर दोनों व्यक्ति कॉलेज चले गये । बाबूजी ने निरालाजी के उस आगमन के विषय में अपनी डायरी में बस इतना लिखा है - 

"आज कविवर निरालाजी अचानक आये । मेरे घर उतरे । कॉलेज में कविता–पाठ हुआ, मैं ही सभापति था । रात की गाड़ी से लखनऊ गये । श्रीनिरालाजी मुझसे मिलने आये तो ‘मतवाला’–मंडल की पुरानी मधुर स्मृतियां जाग उठीं । हृदय में एक लंबी आह उठी । वे कैसे दिन थे! वे दिन लद गये । अब वैसे मौज–मजे के दिन फिर न आवेंगे । सुनहले दिन थे । अब लौह दिवसों की भरमार है । हृदय में एक अभाव और शुष्कता है । जीवन नीरस प्रतीत      होता है ।"

बाबूजी(शिवजी) उनका यही नाम साहित्य–जगत में प्रसिद्ध रहा - राजेंद्र कॉलेज, छपरा में साहित्य–जगत से ही आयातित हुए थे । वे ‘मतवाला’, ‘माधुरी’, ‘गंगा’, ‘जागरण’, ‘बालक’ आदि प्रसिद्ध पत्रिकाओं और प्रेमचंद की ‘रंगभूमि’, ‘द्विवेदी अभिनंदन ग्रंथ’ आदि जैेसे अनेक महत्त्वपूर्ण पुस्तकों के अनन्य संपादन की ख्याति से अभिमंडित होकर हिंदी भाषा और साहित्य के मर्मज्ञ आचार्य के रूप में छपरा कॉलेज में आए थे । उनके छात्र उनसे प्रसाद, निराला और मैथिलीशरण गुप्त की कविताओं की समालोचना से अधिक उन साहित्य–महारथियों के अंतरंग संस्मरण सुनना चाहते थे । लेकिन शिवजी तो उस समय अपने छात्रों को उन साहित्य–मनीषियों का साक्षात्कार ही सुलभ कराने वहां आए थे ।

सौभाग्य से शिवजी की डायरियां अब उनके १० खंडों में संकलित ‘साहित्य समग्र’ में प्रकाशित हो चुकी हैं, और व्यवस्थित रूप से उनकी डायरियां १९३९ से ही प्रारंभ होती हैं जब वे राजेंद्र कॉलेज में आए थे । उनका एक दशक का छपरा–प्रवास ही मेरे बचपन के १०–१२ वर्षों की स्मृति–मंजूषा है । छपरा आने के साल–भर के भीतर ही मैं मातृ–विहीन हो गया था, और पिता की छाया की तरह उनसे लगा रहता था । उन वर्षों की उनकी डायरियों में जगह–जगह मेरी चर्चा हैµ

"मातृहीन बच्चा मंगलमूर्त्ति लाड़–प्यार का भूखा रह गया । स्नेह से सींचते रहने पर भी माता का अभाव खूब अनुभव करता है । दिनभर चित्र अंकित करता और गीत गाता रहता है । मेरे साथ ही रहना चाहता है । गत वर्ष पत्नी की बीमारी के समय प्राय: गाया करता थाµ‘जिसके घर में मां नहीं है, बाबा करे न प्यार’ । इसी गाने को वह अब भी कभी–कभी गाता है । ईश्वर की कैसी प्रेरणा है । यह गाना सटीक बैठा । माता उसकी जाती रही । प्रतिदिन मेरे साथ धर्मनाथजी के दर्शन के लिए जाता है । मंदिर में जाने के लिए घेरे रहता है । मंदिर में सिर टेक कर हाथ जोड़ कर प्रणाम, वंदना करता है ।"

चालीस के दशक की डायरी में अनेक साहित्यकारों के छपरा आने और राजेंद्र कॉलेज अथवा नगर के साहित्यिक उत्सवों में उपस्थित होने की अक्सर चर्चा हुई है, जिसमें एक बार बच्चनजी के वहीं के एक पुस्तकालय के वार्षिक महोत्सव में आने का भी उल्लेख है । मेरी स्मृति में अब भी वह चित्र अंकित है । बच्चनजी तब अंगरेजी के प्रोफेसर से कहीं अधिक ‘मधुशाला’ के कवि के रूप में विख्यात थे । कवि–सम्मेलनों में उनका स्थान सबसे उंचा रहता था । वे केवल बाबूजी के विशेष आमंत्रण पर ही छपरा आए थे । छपरा के उस कवि–सम्मेलन में उनका ‘मधुशाला’ के छंदों का मोहक स्वर में पाठ आज भी मेरे कर्णरंध्रों में गूंज रहा है । उन्होंन एक भूरे रंग का रेशमी कोट–पैंट पहन रखा था । मुझे लगता है, ‘मधुशाला’ के सुरीले छंदों से अधिक मैं उनकी वेश–भूषा के प्रति आकर्षित हुआ था । यह भी याद है कि उनके कविता–पाठ का मंत्रमुग्धकारी प्रभाव श्रोताओं पर छा गया था ।

छपरा का साहित्यिक वातावरण उन दिनों कितना समृद्ध था इसका जगह–जगह उल्लेख बाबूजी की डायरियों में है । और इन सभी आयोजनों का प्रधान मंच राजेंद्र कॉलेज ही हुआ करता था, जहां उन दिनों मनोरंजन प्रसाद सिंह प्रिंस्पल हुआ करते थे, और जहां द्विजजी, मुरलीधर श्रीवास्तव और वीरेद्र श्रीवास्तव जैसे साहित्य–मर्मज्ञ विद्वान हिंदी विभाग को सुशोभित कर रहे थे । बाबूजी ने लिखा है, मार्च १९४४ में एक दिन वे मुझको लेकर छपरा रेलवे स्टेशन गए थे जहां मुजफ्फरपुर में सुहृद संघ के साहित्योत्सव से कई प्रसिद्ध साहित्यकार काशी लौट रहे थे । बाबूजी ने लिखा है:

"काशी के मित्र पं– वाचस्पति पाठक आ पहुंचे । मुजफ्फरपुर के सुहृद संघ के उत्सव से लौटे थे । मंगलमूर्त्ति भी स्टेशन साथ गया । छपरा जंक्शन स्टेशन पर बनारस की गाड़ी में पं– माखनलाल चतुवेंदी, पं– सोहनलाल त्रिवेदी, पं– श्रीनारायण चतुर्वेदी, प्रो. कृष्णदेव प्रसाद गौड़ ‘बेढब’ आदि से भेंट बातचीत हुई । पं. माखनलालजी ने मंगलमूर्त्ति और मुझे एक–एक संतरा दिया और वह कहानी सुनाई जब उन्हें ईख चूसने के कारण बंबई में गाली सुननी पड़ी थी । बड़ी हंसी हुई । मंगलमूर्त्ति को उनका आशीर्वाद मिला ।"

बाबूजी की उन दिनों की डायरियों को आज पढ़ने पर बचपन के वे लुभावने दिन आंखों में भर जाते हैं । मैं बराबर बाबूजी के अंग लगा रहता था । स्कूल में नाम लिखाने के बाद रोज मैं उन्हीं के साथ कॉलेज जाता था जो मेरे स्कूल की बगल में ही था । स्कूल खतम होते ही मैं कॉलेज के स्टाफरूम में पहुंच जाता था । बाबूजी जब क्लास में होते तो मैं क्लास के बाहर जाकर खड़ा हो जाता था ताकि वे मुझको देख लें । मैं देखता था पढ़ाने की अपनी तन्मयता में भी उनकी आंखों से वात्सल्य छलक उठता था । बाहर दरवाजे के पास एक बूढ़ा आदमी स्टूल पर बैठा, आधा जगा आधा सोया, पैर के अंगूठे में फंसी रस्सी से क्लास के अंदर के पंखे खींचता रहता था । अब लगता है, क्लास के बाहर मैं शायद इसलिए जाकर खड़ा हो जाता था ताकि घंटी बजने के बाद भी कुछ देर तक बाबूजी पढ़ाते न रहें, जैसा वे अक्सर करते ही थे । हंसते हुए वे क्लास से बाहर निकलते और मुझको प्यार करते हुए स्टाफरूम तक आते, और फिर मेरे साथ घर लौटते । इधर एक–दो बार छपरा जाने का अवसर मिला तो वहां से लौटने पर छपरा में बीते अपने बचपन के उन दिनों की याद करते हुए मैंने एक–दो संस्मरण लिखे हैं, जिनका कथानक एक लंबी उदास कहानी जैसा लगता है ।

‘‘लगभग साठ–पैंसठ साल बाद बचपन के उस शहर में लौटना उसके लिए एक स्तंभित करने वाला अनुभव था । सांप के केंचुल जैसी टेढ़ी–मेढ़ी पसरी सड़क तो वही थी, लेकिन जैसे अब थोड़ी सिकुड़ गई हो । सारा पैमाना ही जैसे सिकुड़ गया लगता था । सब कुछ लगभग वैसा ही था, केवल सबका कद जैसे कुछ छोटा हो गया हो । सड़क वही थी, मकान भी बहुत सारे वही थे, नीम का वह पेड़ भी वहीं था जहां से दियारे की ओर एक कच्चा रास्ता उतरता था ।

‘‘सड़क लगभग सुनसान थी । उसकी एक छोर से दूसरी छोर तक वह कुछ देर तक टहलता रहा, जैसे बचपन के रास्ते पर दुबारा चल रहा हो । अचानक उसको उस पुरानी हवेली की याद आई, जहां वह कुछ ही कदम चलकर पहुंच गया । लेकिन वहां तो अब कुछ नहीं था । केवल एक लंबा–चौड़ा ज़मीन का रकबा बच गया था, बिलकुल खाली, जिसमें एक ओर एक बुलडोज़र खड़ा था और उस सारी ज़मीन पर उस ख़ौफ़नाक लोहे के दांत वाली मशीन के चारों ओर चक्कर लगानेे के ताज़ा निशान दिखाई दे रहे थे । उसने जोर देकर अपने कदमों को रोका जो उसको वहां ले जाना चाहते थे जहां वह बड़ा–सा कमरा रहा होगा, बड़े आइनों वाला, जिसमें उसकी बीमार मां उसको लेकर लेटी रहती थी । लेकिन उसके मन में एक झिझक हुई, क्योंकि अब उस खाली जमीन की ओर यों ही जाना किसी को भी एक बेमतलब–सी हरकत लग सकती थी । वह लौटकर उस दूसरे मकान की ओर चल पड़ा जो वहां से कुछ ही कदम दूर था, जिसमें उसके पिता बाद में रहने लगे थे और जिसमें उसका सारा बचपन बीता था । लेकिन वह मकान भी अब एकदम बूढ़ा हो चुका था । बाहर से देखने पर वह एक झुका हुआ, सूखी ठठरीवाला कोई बूढ़ा इंसान हो, ऐसा लगता था ।

‘‘अब वह उस दूसरे मकान में अंदर गया जहां उसकी मां गांव जाने से पहले कुछ दिन रही थी ।मां ने खुद अपनी पसंद से वह मकान बनवाया था, हालांकि वह उसमें कुछ ही दिन रह पाई थी, क्योंकि उसके लिए गांव में जाकर रहना गांव की गृहस्थी संभालने के लिए ज़रूरी हो गया था । यह दूसरा मकान भी जिसमें वह गांव जाने से पहले कुछ ही दिन रह पाई–किराये का ही था । मकान–मालिक उसी मुहल्ले में वहीं पास में ही रहते थे और शहर के बड़े रइसों में उनकी गिनती थी । वहीं एक बड़ा–सा दोमंज़िला मकान था उनका और शहर में बहुत लंबा–चौड़ा कारोबार था । शहर तो छोटा ही था पर कॉलेज में पढ़ाने की वजह से उसके पिता की अब शहर में बड़ी इज्जत थी । मकान–मालिक ने उनकी सुविधा और पसंद के मुताबिक उस मकान को बनवाया था । उसमें बिजली भी लग गई थी जो मुहल्ले के शायद कम ही मकानों में अब तक लगी थी ।

‘‘वह एक–मंज़िला खपरैल छत वाला ही मकान था, उसी सड़क पर । सड़क से लगा, सामने एक बरामदा था जिसके पीछे बैठक जैसा एक लंबा कमरा था जिसके तीन दरवाज़े बरामदे में सामने खुलते थे । इन दरवाजों में झंझरीदार झरोखे बने थे जिन्हें खोलकर देखा जा सकता था, बाहर कौन आया है । इसी बैठक वाले लंबे कमरे में एक छोर पर एक छोटी–सी कोठरी पिता ने ख़ासकर अपने पढ़ने–लिखने के लिए बनवाई थी । बैठक वाले कमरे के पीछे दो वैसे ही कमरे थे, जो घर में रहने वाले और लोगों के मसरफ़ के लिए थे । उसके पीछे चारों ओर से छतदार बरामदों से घिरा एक बड़ा–सा आंगन था । इसमें आगे और पीछे के बरामदे बगल के दोनों बरामदों से ज्यादा चौड़े थे । पिछले बरामदे के बाद आगे की बैठक के बराबर का ही एक बड़ा–सा कमरा था जिसमें पीछे की ओर दो बड़ी–बड़ी खिड़कियां थीं । इन खिड़कियों से पीछे की ओर एक छोटी–सी फुलबगिया थी जिसकी आखिरी छोर पर नरकट के घने झुरमुट थे और उनके बाद दूर–दूर तक खुले खेत थे जो क्षितिज तक फैले थे ।

‘‘बरसात के दिनों में सरजू में जब बाढ़ आती थी तो उसका पानी उन नरकट झुरमुटों तक आ जाता था । तभी उसे याद आया वह मंज़र, जब वह पिछले कमरे की खिड़की की छड़ पकड़ कर देख रहा था, डूबे हुए नरकट के पार, भयंकर बाढ़ की तेज लहरों में बहती कई–कई लाशें, जिनके गुब्बारे की तरह फूले पेटों पर कौए बैठे उनके साथ बहते, उन्हें खोदते–खाते जा रहे थे । किसीने उसे बाद में बताया था ये गोरों की लाशें थीं जिन्हें लोगों ने मार कर नदी में फेंक दिया था, क्योंकि ये आंदोलन के दिन थे, जब अंगरेजों को भारत छोड़ने का फ़रमान जारी हुआ था । उसे तब यह भी याद आया कि उसके घर के सामने वाली उसी सड़क पर - जो अब केंचुल हो गई थी - बड़ी–बड़ी लारियों में हेलमेट पहने मशीनगन ताने गोरे सैनिक तेजी से गश्त लगाते गुज़र जाते थे, जब सड़कें भरी दोपहरी में भी बिलकुल सुनसान होती थीं, और वह सहमा हुआ सामने के बंद दरवाजों की झंझरी से यह सब देख कर सिहर जाता था ।

‘‘नरकट के झुरमुटों में उलझी उसकी स्मृति में बाढ़ का वह दिन भी याद आया जब शिव मंदिर के पीछे के घाट पर वह भागवत के साथ नहाने गया था और नहाते–नहाते ही डूबने लगा था । डूबते–डूबते, उसे याद है, उसकी आंखों के सामने पानी में केवल भूरी–भूरी रोशनी दिखाई दे रही थी, तभी झटके से भागवत ने उसको उपर खींच लिया था और वह बच गया था । भागवत ने उसको बहुत समझाया था कि वह किसी से यह बात नहीं बताएगा । नरकट झुरमुट के आगे जो छोटी–सी फुलबगिया उसके पिता ने लगाई थी उसमें तुलसी, चमेली, गेंदे और गुलाब के कई पौधे थे, और एक पीले कनैल का पेड़ भी था जिसके फूल उसके पिता रोज शिवजी पर चढ़ाते थे । कालेज से लौटने के बाद रोज वे थोड़ी देर नंगे बदन, कमर में केवल एक गमछा लपेट, फुलबगिया में ज़रूर पौधों की निकौनी और पटवन किया करते थे ।

"मैंने आज फुलवारी को साफ किया । थोड़ी देर फुलवारी में काम करता रहा । फुलवारी में क्यारियां बनाईं । फुलवारी में खुरपी लेकर काम करने में बड़ा आनंद आता है । एक पेड़ कनैल का, तीन गांछ गुलाब - सबको देख मोह–छोह । पेड़–पौधे कैसे प्यारे लगते हैं । पौधे को रोज देखने से, गोड़ने और सींचने से, पौधे की रंगत हरी–भरी हो जाती है । फुलवारी से ठाकुरजी को तुलसी मंजरी और कुछ फूल मिल जाते हैं । एक दिन यह फुलवारी छूट जायगीµयह संसार भी तो छूट ही जायगा ।"

‘‘फुलवारी की सफाई में उनके साथ–साथ वह भी लगा रहता था । फिर वे पिछले वाले बरामदे में लगे पानी वाले हाथ–नल पर नहाते थे और पीछे वाले कमरे के कोने में रखी पूजा की आलमारी के सामने बैठकर पूजा करते थे । पूजा के बाद नियमत: वे बगल की ठाकुरबारी में भी दर्शन–पूजा के लिए जाते थे, जहां वे उसको ज़रूर ले जाते थे ।

"वह प्रतिदिन मेरे साथ धर्मनाथजी के दर्शन के लिए जाता है । उसकी यह प्रवृत्ति ऐसी हो गई है कि मंदिर में जाने के लिए घेरे रहता है । और कभी छोड़ देता हूं तो रोने लगता है । मंदिर में सिर टेक कर हाथ जोड़कर प्रणाम, वंदना आदि करता है और विद्या पाने का वरदान मांगता है ।"

‘‘आज भी वह सबसे पहले उसी मंदिर में शिव–दर्शन के लिए गया था । मंदिर परिसर में बहुत परिवर्त्तन नहीं हुआ था, केवल एक मंदिर दुर्गाजी का बीच में नया बन गया था, जिसके आगे दोनों ओर दो बड़ी–बड़ी सिंह–मूर्त्तियां बैठा दी गई थीं । मंदिर के प्रवेश–द्वार के सामने के रास्ते के दोनों ओर मिठाई की दूकानें आज भी वैसी ही थीं । पुराने मंदिर की प्रतिमाएं बिलकुल वैसी ही थीं - गर्भगृह में शिवलिंग के चारों ओर एक घेरा लग गया था, और आयताकार कमरे में घेरे के एक ओर राम–दरबार की प्रतिमाएं पहले जैसी ही थीं । दीवारों पर संगमरमर के चौकोर टुकड़े कतार में जड़े थे जिन पर देवी–देवताओं के सुंदर रंगीन चित्र अंकित थे, और जब तक पिता घ्यान–पूजा में लगे होते, वह उन चित्रों को देखता और उन पर उंगलियां फेरता रहता ।’’

छपरा में बीते मेरे बचपन के वे दिन और बाबूजी के जीवन का चालीस का वह दशक मेरे स्मृतिकोष की अमूल्य संपत्ति है । बाबूजी के साथ बीते अपने जीवन के शैशव और युवावस्था के उन दिनों की स्मृतियों में एक उपन्यास का कथानक गुमशुदा है, जिसको आज भी जीवन की इस संध्या में मैं ढूंढ़ने में लगा रहता हूं ।

लेकिन बाबूजी की ही एक अविस्मरणीय पंक्ति है - ‘‘अब न वे दिन बहुरेंगे, न वे लोग!’’¹

(c ) डा. मंगलमूर्त्ति

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