MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES - II                                               

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

-        Graham Greene

 

5.

To resume the story of my childhood days in Chhapara, I’d first cite some of my father’s diary entries about my playful activities, before supplementing them with some of my own memories.

1942: Aug 28. MM (Balendu Shekhar) goes everyday with me for darshan of Dharmnathji. From last one month, he’s developed a habit of being around me for going to the temple with me. If left behind, he starts crying. In the temple he would bow his head and join hands for his prayer desiring for good education. For the whole day he would keep singing songs happily. MM seems to be bright and talented…

Here he records, how with my siblings I had been sent to our village Unwans because of the 1942 ‘Quit India’ movement. It was on Sep. 12)  we left Chhapara with our uncle, Devnandan Lal, by boat, as train services were being disrupted everywhere. I have vivid memory of our long boat journey in river Ganga, and I still remember with thrill the sight of a snake slithering fast in the mud by the river bank as our boat plied forward. We went by boat upto Ara, and from there we travelled by a horse-cart (‘ekka’) upto our village - about forty miles south-west on a rugged road.

Father, - whom we called Babuji - also joined us there for the Pooja Vacation in October. My eldest brother AM was already admitted into Chhapara Zila School and was a great lover of books – especially in English. In one diary entry my father writes:

Nov. 26: AM’s English pronunciation is very good. He has avid interest in his studies. He has great affection for MM and his two younger sisters. He’d ask everyday about MM’s return from the village….He loves MM with great fondness. All my four children are lovingly attached amongst themselves.

Everyday, after return from college, Babuji would change clothes and wrap a thin towel round his waist and taking a ‘khurpi’ (spud) go into the small garden (‘fulwari’) at the back of our house for tending to the plants and watering them. And I would always be with him as he kept working there for an hour or so before having his evening bath – after which he will routinely go to the Dharmnathji temple taking me along.

Dec. 20: I got fatigued after working at the three rows of the plants in the ‘fulwari’. But working at the flowers and watering them gives them new life and also adds to one’s happiness. Working there is also good for health. At the same time one also gets some flowers and tulsi leaves for the worship of Thakurji…

In another, later entry (6 March, 1945) he gets emotional about that little backyard garden:

Kept working in the ‘fulwari’ for a short while. But one day it will have to be left behind. There is one ‘Kaneil’ tree (with yellow daffodil like blossoms)and three rose bushes – but I feel sad for them. “रोड़े  चुन-चुन महल बनाया, लोग कहें घर मेरा रे। ना  घर तेरा, ना घर मेरा, चिड़िया रैन बसेर रे!”

With stone upon stone I built a house.

But the house is neither mine, nor yours.

It is only like a bird’s nest!

 



And then a day will come when this world also will have to be left behind.

 

                                                            6.

It was now 1943, and I was entering into my seventh year. Babuji records some of the rituals of my early childhood, like my ‘mundan’ and my ‘akshararambh’ and similar other day-to-day events in his diary.   

June 3-7: Preparations went on for our journey to Baidyanath Dham (June 3). Mangal’s ‘mundan’ is on Monday which could not be performed in his fifth year because of his mother’s death. She had died leaving him in his fourth year and it was becoming late for that ritual… Mangal’s ‘mundan’ was performed today(7^th) at Bidyanath Dham, the holy shrine of ‘Ravaneshwar’ Shivji. AM’s birth and ‘mundan’ had taken place in Benares in the west while Mangal’s in the east in Darbhanga and Devghar respectively. Saroj took Mangal’s shaven hair in her frock…AM is of a quiet nature, whereas Mangal is a bit naughty, but more practical, and is likely to look after the affairs of the family as is the tradition in my family…

Aug 14-15: Went with Mangal to the market for buying things for his ‘akshararambh’(the ritual of a child’s first writing ‘Om’ with a chalk on a slate)…Around three in the afternoon (of 15^th) the ceremony was performed by Prof.‘Dwij’ .Pt Yagyanandji performed the pooja of god Ganesh and goddess Saraswati. Then there was a feast for my college collegues and some invited neighbours. Mangal put Rs 5, with a dhoti and chadar, on the feet of ‘Dwij’ji….

Dec. 7: Like an infant MM sleeps with me cuddled in my lap during nights, as he would have with his mother. Bereft of motherly love, he seeks it in my lap…. (A little later he wrote:) Every night MM sleeps only with me and asks me to tell him ‘Ramkatha’ - the story of god Ram – he insists - in chaste Bhojpuri(28.6.45).

With his long associations with most of the important literary personalities in Hindi, my father would often invite them for lectures in the college literary meets, though I was too small as a child to understand their significance. Literary figures and aspirants, local people and students often came to see my father or to present him their newly written books. Of them I remember the young poets Janki Ballabh Shastri and Shyam Nandan Kishore, et al  coming to meet my father to present their first collection of poems. In one diary entry, he writes about the visit of Rahul Sankrityayan:

Dec. 17. There was a seminar in the Philosophy Department in the college this evening addressed by Rahul Baba. He said that Indian philosophy has been deeply influenced by Greek philosophy. According to him – Gautam, Kanad, Bharadwaj, Yagyavalk were of later time than Buddhadev. He scrubbed hard the old Indian traditional philosophy on the touchstone of history. He tried to prove that the new generation was far ahead in terms of knowledge and civilization as compared with the older generation. That is how the modern logicians are going about nowadays.

Incidentally, one event of a sudden visit of Niralaji one day at our Ratanpura house stands out vividly in my memory.

1942: March 18. Niralaji arrived today all on a sudden. There was his poetry recitation in my college under my presidentship. We had a long chat about memories of our‘Matwala’ days. I had a deep surge of nostalgia of those golden days which will never come back now. Our present time is full of only loss and emptiness…Niralaji left for Lucknow by the night train.

 I have written about that august visit in some detail in a Hindi memoir in my book ‘Darpan Me We Din’. But I’ve a clear memory of his sudden arrival one morning in our house. My father was preparing for his morning ablutions and his pooja. As usual, I was with him. When Niralaji came he hugged my father in a close emotional embrace for a while as I stood there. Suddenly Niralaji saw me by my father’s side and lifted me up with both hands, putting me astride his broad shoulders. He was a tall and well-built person, and while on his shoulders, in fear of a sudden fall, I tightly grabbed his long flowing silken tresses and kept holding on to them throughout as he kept chatting with my father. That is a glorious moment of my tryst with the greatest modern Hindi poet indeliably etched in my memory!¹

Being the youngest child in the family – and motherless – I was everyone’s pet, and spent most of my time with Babuji when he was at home. Entry into his small study room was forbidden for everyone except myself, who always sat or lay there on the mat beside father on the floor. The small room had no other furniture except a book-rack cut into the wall opposite the only door to the room (see photo in part-I). When my father lay there on the mat reading or writing, I would also sit there looking into the colourful pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses. I still have some of the pencil sketches – copyings of those coloured photos published in the ‘Kalyan’ monthly magazine published from the geeta Press, Gorakhpur -  which I used to draw while Babuji was engaged in his serious literary studies.  

                                               

 

                                                           

Meanwhile, I was growing up slowly. One day, as the diary records, Babuji took me along to the railway station to meet some of his old literary friends, in break journey, who were waiting there for their next train.

1944: March 6. Pt Vachaspati Pathak,my friend from Kashi, came. He was returning from the Suhrid Sangh literary seminar in Muzaffarpur. I accompanied him, with Mangal, to the railway station where Pt Makhanlal Chaturvedi, Pt Sohanlal Dwivedi, Pt Shrinarayan Chaturvedi, Prof. Krishnadev Prasad Gaud ‘Bedhab’, et al were waiting for their train for Benares. Pt Makhanlalji gave an orange each to Mangal and me. He also blessed Mangal.

                                                            7.

During his college service, my father had two long vacations in summer and winter which were mostly spent in our village home. By 1945, Babuji had sent my two sisters to stay at the village home. It was in that same large dozen-roomed house that our joint family of two uncles, aunts and their children lived.

The big thatched-roof house had an outer veranda with a spacious raised platform in front with two small rooms at the eastern and western ends of the veranda. This outer part was meant as  sitting place for gents and the outsider males. For the female members of the family there was a big rectangular internal court yard - with a wood-apple tree right in the middle - with thatched verandas on all four sides and rooms behind each of thefour inner verandas. Initially there was a family arrangement by which my father and his two brothers – Rampoojan Lal and Devnandan lal (the former deceased in 1930) – with their families, had each a share of four rooms. Attached, both in the eastern and western parts were small enclosed open spaces meant for female washrooms, etc. Till a final formal partition took place among the three families, my father was allotted the eastern portion in the inner house which was initially on the eastern side. It was in a room in the centre of the inner eastern verandah in which my mother had expired. I have a very hazy memory of ‘Amma’ lying in her illness on a cot in this room brestfeeding me. My two uncle’s families lived in the southern and the western sides of the inner house.

Things were not very happy and amiable in our large joint family, and there always was a palpable tension among my youngest uncle, Devnandan Lal, my two aunts – the middle one, a widow now – and my mother, ever since her marriage². My aunts, in particular, were always bitterly jealous of my mother for her always staying away in towns while they had to live in the village home. At one place in his diary my father writes:

1945: Feb. 22. The house tangle still remains unresolved. All my life has been wasted in this village house problem. I was born in such a family that my whole life was spent in such worries. Otherwise, I’d have done much more in my literary pursuits in my life….

During the Summer Vacation of 1945 (in May-June) finally under a family settlement, Babuji was allotted his share in the house – this time in the western portion, with the eastern portion now allotted to his deceased brother’s widow and his only son (Lallan, the eldest among all siblings in my generation). My youngest Uncle, Devnandan Lal, preferred to construct a new house in a new family plot of land, situted just a little to the north, with adequate financial compensation from the two other brother-sharers. Babuji writes in his diary:

May 21-29: In the evening I moved with my children into the western portion of our village  house. In the evening, Saroj and Bindu cooked our dinner in the kitchen. It was on this same day and same date in 1928, when my third marriage had taken place in Bilaspur which gave me my four lovely children…All my books for my library presently lie scattered. They must be properly dusted and arranged now…Both the two wooden almirahs of books were put in their proper places in the oblong room in the west. I have always been collecting and preserving books and journals - which is all the material wealth I have. AM remains deeply engrossed in hs books in the library throughout the day. MM also helps in arranging and caring for books….By God’s grace ,the house arrangement has finally been settled. Although illumination from earthen lamps is a little inconvenient.

On my uncle’s insistence, my two sisters – Sarojini (b. 1931) and Vinodini (b. 1933) – were now compelled (since 1945) to live in our village home to look after our farming affairs, and thus were deprived of their proper school education. Both had only had some elementary education when Babuji was in Laheriasarai, and soon after coming to Chhapara, they were shifted to the village home in Unwans. When once during the Pooja Vacation, Babuji was leaving Unwans for Patna, he writes in his diary:

1946: Oct.9. My daughters became very sad to hear about my going. Because of my family problems, I could not give them proper school education. This will be a permanent regret in my life. I only gave them a copy of ‘Ramcharit Manas’ for regular reading. They had already learnt writing in Hindi script while in Chhapara. But I wish they had learnt enough Hindi by now which would have helped them in their future life.

But my sisters were now growing up in their teens. Sarojini was now 15 and Binodini 13, and Babuji was getting worried about their marriage, also because their mother was no longer alive to take good care of them. In that year’s Matriculation exam at Chhapara Zila Schoo AM had appeared in his Matriculation exams and done very well in all subjects, but had failed in Maths. (My father writes there: “I, too, had failed twice in Maths”. May 9). 

FN 1. My father, in his later life, wrote a series of memoirs of his close association with Nirala, available in SSSS, Vol-2. My Hindi memoir of my serendipitous tryst with the great poet can be read in ‘Darpan Me We Din’

FN 2. It had been going on since long in the past as my father’s early diaries testify – even in the time of my father’s second wife, who had lived with my father for some time when he was serving as a school teacher in Ara around 1915, and later also for a few months in Calcutta during 1926, where she had died following the death by small pox of her eight year old daughter Vasanti (my father’s very first issue). As my father had moved away from our village during his school education followed by his teaching stint at Ara, his two brothers managing the family farming affairs always felt uneasy about the state of family affairs.

Our ancestral house (now demolished) constructed around 1920. The Dalan, and the Library (Vageeshwari Pustakalay established by my father in 1921. On Left is the big strong door described in his novel 'Dehati Duniya, Pub. 1926)

The Shiva temple, east of our house, on way to the river (described in 'Mera Bachpan')

Below: The Kochan (or Thora) river further east of the temple (also described in 'Mera Bachpan') 

The Shivalaya just north of the village with a pond full of lotus flowers where my father would always stop first before entering the village whenever he came to Unwans (our village, about 15Kms south of Buxar)

                                                                         [To be continued]

Text& Photos © Dr BSM Murty                                                       

 

 




MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

Mangal Murty     

                                                            1.

I’m reading sample extracts from Edwin Muir’s Autobiography in Kindle. It begins with the mention of his birth on a particular date in a particular place (Wyre) in Scotland. And that reminded me of the singularly unique story of the actual moment of my ‘conception’ in a couple of diary entries of my father  – something so absolutely unique in any autobiographical account as to be most incredible, indeed!

Had even Edwin Muir read this story of a child’s conception and birth recorded by his father in a diary, he would just have gaped in wonder – because nowhere in (known) literature one would find another such instance of a marked moment of a child’s conception recorded in a personal document for posterity.

 It was in a thatched cottage within the premises of Pustak Bhandar in Laheria Sarai (Darbhanga, Bihar) which was a publication house where my father was then serving as editor of ‘Balak’, a children’s monthly. Under compulsion of earning a living to support a small family of his wife and three children, he had shifted there with his family from Benares in March, 1934. The cottage had been specially built for my parents within Bhandar’s premises– soon after the devastating earthquake of 15 Jan. 1934 - after my father had finally decided to come to Laheriasarai. With three of my infant siblings – Anand Murty (AM,5), Sarojini (3) and Vinodini (1) who were all born in Benares.

It had happenened in the early hours of one evening in May 1936, in the small courtyard of that thatched cottage – under the open sky, beside the ‘Tulsi’ plant. My father recollects that moment – without specifying the exact date¹ - almost five years later in Chhapara. Here are the two diary entries written in Chhapara, just one year after my mother’s death (16 November, 1940) – when I was only a motherless toddler of three years ten months, under the close care and nursing of my father.

28 Nov. 1941: Every evening I go to Shri Dharmnathji (temple in Chhapara) for darshan. Sometimes, Mangal Murty (MM) also goes with me. The child seems devoted to Shivji. His birth I owe to Shivji’s benediction. In Laheriasarai, Badi Didi (my wife’s widowed old sister who often came and stayed with us in Benares and Laheriasarai) had brought a marigold  flower as ‘prasad’ from Shivji (temple there), and given to my wife. It was precisely on that day that Mangal was conceived. By God’s grace my wife always remembered it. When Mangal was in her womb, my wife always remained healthy and happy. She loved Mangal immensely.

6 Nov. 1942: MM’s mother had received  from Badi Didi a big yellow marigold flower in her hand as the ‘prasad’ of Shivji just after the act of his conception. Badi Didi had given that flower to my wife in a blessed mood. She had also given her the ‘prasadi’(sweets). It was in a quarter within the premises of Pustak Bhandar in Laheriasarai. The Arya Samaj temple lay just to the west side of Bhandar.There was a ‘Tulsi’ plant in one corner of that quarter. It was just there, quite early in the evening, when the conception had taken place. At that time Badi Didi had gone for the darshan of the ‘Bade Mahadev’. It must have been by God’s Will!

It is thus with the incredible story of the exact moment of my ‘onception’ recorded in his diary by my father that my autobiography must begin!

I am reading sample extracts from autobiographies of famous people like Tolstoy, Gorky, Nelson Mandela – available free for sample reading on Amazon Kindle – retelling of their childhood, in particular, because the samples give the beginning parts where childhood is described. And that is of interest to me, because I’m going to write – at least in my present design – only about my childhood, about the first dozen years of my life.

Whereas in those other autobiographies I find that the accounts of childhood have been hurriedly bypassed, or presented in fictional form complete with scene-painting and remembered imaginary dialogues, my account of childhood is not in the form of a re-created fictional narrative. And also, it has the scaffolding of the actual diary-entries of my father which give a parallel narrative, real and atual.

                                                            2.

I have a very faint – but equally vivid - vision of another small modest rented house there in Bengali Tolain Laheriasarai where my parents had later moved, after my birth in that thatched cottage in Bhandar’s premises.

My memories of that second house in Bengali Tola where my parents had moved after my birth are also very faint and dream-like. The small rented house had a narrow oblong inner courtyard flanked on one side by a roofed verandah with a couple of rooms. On the opposite side of the verandah, enclosing the courtyard, was a blind wall. The entry into the house must have been from the side of the verandah which was on a slightly raised platform with the oblong courtyard a couple of feet below. And at one end of the courtyard was an oleander tree. All this is still in my memory’s imagination – quite cler and vivid.

I even have a few other vignettes – equally faint and dream-like in my memory. One of a row of green formaline jars in a window of a hospital where someone must have been carrying me in lap – possibly when my mother’s health, after my birth, had started deteriorating. Then I have another memory when my parents were finally leaving for Chhapara with all of us going to the Laheriasarai railway station with our luggage being carried in a postal trolley. I can see the steel netting of that postal trolley very vividly even now.

After my parents arrived in Chhapara where my father joined as Hindi lecturer in Rajendra College on 15 November, 1939. My mother’s health had deteriorated significantly, but she was very happy with my father’s new status as a college lecturer. Friends in Chhapara had fixed up a rented house for him which was an old abandoned large Haveli said to be haunted, and I was later told that my mother had once got frightened by some ghostly shadow in one of its latrines. I was still my mother’s lap-baby and I have a faint memory of that house, too! I remember lying by my mother’s side on her breastfeed, in a large hall-like room. I can still visualize the very large uncleaned golden-framed wall-mirrors and cobwebbed glass chandeliers hung up by the high ceiling as I lay by my mother’s side being  on her breastfeed. The different sights of that house only remind me of its lonely, long-uninhabited, uncleaned broad courtyards and numerous hall-like rooms in its double-storied structure².

In that haunted house, my father stayed only for a very short period, because soon he moved with his family of a wife with four small kids into a new, freshly constructed house, built on his request, in a nearby locality. My mother, however, had soon afterwards to move to our village near Buxar, on persistent pressure from my uncles and my aunts - always jealous of my mother for her urban life of comfort – to live in the village home on the pretext of managing our farming affairs in the village.

I have, again, a faint memory of lying by my mother’s side, being breastfed on a cot in her allotted room in that village home of our joint farming family. That must have been in the summer months of 1940, when she had finally to go to the village home during my father’s college summer vacation. I think now - I’ve a feeling - that my mother then was very seriously ill and suffering, and she died soon thereafter on 16 November, 1940 for total lack of any medical care in that interior village.

I have no recollection of my mother’s death or her being taken for her funeral to Buxar where my father arrived from Chhapara, only by a tragic coincidence, on receiving the news of my mother’s death by my uncle’s telegram. But a few vague images stick in my memory of some of the events afterwards in the village home, or after we went back to Chhapara with our father. For instance, I vividly remember how all my three siblings – my eldest brother and two elder sisters – all within ten years in age – had broken into bitter and prolonged crying when they had seen a photo of my deceased mother with an obituary printed in the literary monthly ‘Sudha’ (Feb., 1941)³

                                                            3.

Chhapara in the forties - when I was growing up as a child, motherless and now always sticking to my father’s side - was a small district town. It had a railway station, a district hospital and a market. The new house in which my father lived with us – the four siblings – and my mother’s eldest old widowed sister and a couple of others of her family to take care of us, was at one end of the town, very close to the famous Dharmnath Mahadev’s temple. The locality was known as Ratanpura and the road in front of our house led to the temple on the right and to that old haunted Haveli on the left. At the back of the row of houses fringing the road were open farming lands which were submerged every year during the rainy season by the flood in the Saryu river which lay, a couple of kilometers to the south. The flood-waters came right up to the backyard of our house where my father had a small backyard garden  (‘fulwari’) with a Kaneil tree,  a few plants of marigold and rose flowers, some plants of ‘Tulsi’ - fenced off at the back with a wild growth of  ‘Narkat’ (wild reed) bushes. Every morning my father would get some flowers and ‘Tulsi’ leaves from that ‘fulwari’ for his daily morning worship.

My memories of my early childhood years – now a motherless infant -  are of that house in which I lived with my eldest brother and two sisters and members of my mother’s family to who now lived with us to take care of us.

As it happens, my memories of my childhood in my recollection have a backup of my father’s diary writing, and some of those memories are shored up by written diary entries of my father which begin in 1941, just a few months after my mother’s death.                                          

1941: Sep 1-3. Last year during the illness of my wife Mangal Murty(MM) would often sing a film-song – “ One who doesn’t have his mother, and the father, too, would not love him…”. He often sings that song even now. How fateful it proved. He lost his mother soon afterwards…. He also sings his favourite song from the film ‘Tulsidas’ – “O human, always sing the praise of Ram. You have only two days to live.”…Both my sons (AM & MM) are showing early signs of their genius.

These diary entries of my father’s Chhapara days are full of nostalgic recollections of his dear deceased wife. Only a month and a half later he wrote in several entries:

1941: A letter from ‘Sudha’ office informs that a photo obituary of my deceased wife is being published in its coming issue. Only God knows why he desired my daling wife’s mysterious separation from me (4.1)…Never do I forget my wife’s beautiful features or her hair-style. I’ll never again get such a goddess-like life-partner. I pray to God to give me that same companion in all my afterlives (17.1)…Memories of my departed wife keep smouldering in my heart. How sweet was her nature? She would always keep herself – and even her children - impeccably clean, dressed and attractive (2.6) …Herself she always remained so clean and pure, in fact, that the smell of her body – and even her breath – would always intoxicate me…Even in heaven the gods must be treating her with affection…How sweet was her voice, how soft, indeed, were all her limbs (8.10)… Memories of my darling wife overwhelmed me as I prepared to sleep tonight. How much she loved me? Yet it was not only a physical union for us, but a deep spiritual one. She had become one with my soul. She must have come from the heaven of gods where she has gone again…She would keep her hair, nails,teeth, lips, eyes, skin, hands and feet – all so impeccably clean that I’d often start rubbing her lovely soles against my cheek (7-10.10).”

The pangs of separation in his wife’s untimely death were so agonizing that the pain gets overwhelming after every few entries in his diaries of this whole decade of his life in Chhapara. And there are occasional entries about me – a motherless infant, hardly four-year old, who was just a toddler now almost inseparable from him in his daily life routine.

1941: Oct. 26. Returned to Chhapara from Laheriasarai in morning. Saw my playful children after many days. Hugged and kissed MM -pressing him to my heart. Smelt Sarojini and Vinodini on their heads. Showered love on AM. Cuddled all - making them happy….

1942:Jan.20. The surroundings of thatched straw-hut near the Brahmsthan beside the Sangeetalay in which we lived in Bhandar in Laheriasarai were then awfully dirty which may have affected my wife’s health adversely. Though I was not so keen about coming to Chhapara, but my wife was very insistent. She was so happy about the job at Chhapara. But she could hardly enjoy her life here even for one year…MM is the symbol of his mother’s love…

Diary entries for 1941 and ’42 are full of such poignant reminiscences of my mother’s love, piety and devotion. But being the youngest and last child of my mother – a mere infant in its brestfeeding stage – my father’s attention was always focussed on me, and I always received his maximum indulgence.

                                                            4.

Our house was a newly built one in which by the roadside was a thatched open verandah behind which was a long rectangular hall - as lobby - with three doors opening out on the veranda. At one end of this hall there was a small oblong windowless room which was my father’s personal study, specially constructed on my father’s request.  

Behind that  main front hall was a living-room also serving as passage to the inner courtyard which had four thatched roof verandahs on all sides.To the back side, after a broader verandah, was another small hall-like rectangular room with three barred windows opening out on the ‘fulwari’ behind the house, and beyond that were open farming fields. Here are some photos of that Chhapara house in Ratanpura, only a few yards away from the Dharmnath temple, and of the Rajendra College Clock Tower and its premises with their lecture halls, labs and offices, etc on all four sides.

FN 1. On calculation, I decipher the date to be between 25-27 May, 1936 – Google AI tells me, it’s 166 days between conception and delivery of a human child. And I was born on 16 January, 1937; possibly in a hospital, though that is not mentioned anywhere.

FN 2. Recently, in 2008, on a visit to Chhapara, when I went to see that ‘Haveli’ for my curiosity, I found it had been totally demolished and razed to the ground, now only a tractor-ploughed yellow-earthed plot of land, with the ploughing tractor standing in one corner.

FN 3. We were then back in Chhapara as my father’s diary entry shows: “ ‘Sudha’ came today in which my deceased wife’s photo and obituary are published. My childen – Anand Murty, Sarojini, etc started crying bitterly”. (8 March, 1941

Text & Photos (C) Dr BSM Murty

   

     

From top downwards. 1. The  Ratanpura house seen from the road, its outer verandah and the road alongside. 2. The narrow single-door room of my father’s study. 3. Two scenes from the Dharmnath Mahadev Temple nearby (where I’m seen heading). 4. The Rajendra College Clock Tower and its rectangular set of lecture halls across the expansive courtyard.

(I took these photos when I visited Chhapara in 2008, about 70 years after the house was constructed. Now the house is rented as a chicken coop.)

[To be continued]

Text & Photos © Dr BSM Murty                                                      

 

श्री गिरिराज अग्रवाल की स्मृति

मंगलमूर्त्ति

 

कहानी बहुत पुरानी है – कोई ७०-७५ साल पुरानी. आरा से मेरे परिवार का पुराना संबंध रहा. मेरे पिता का  तो बचपन ही वहां बीता था; वहीँ उनकी पढ़ाई हुई, और कुछ दिन वे वहाँ शिक्षक भी रहे, उसी स्कूल में जो अब जैन स्कूल है. लेकिन यह तो लगभग सवा सौ साल पहले १९०५-१५ के आस-पास की बात है.

आरा अंग्रेजों के ज़माने में पुराने शाहाबाद जिले का मुख्यालय था, जो  भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम में बाबू कुंवर सिंह की वीरता के आख्यानों से जुड़ा है – उस आरा से मैं और मेरे बड़े भाई श्री आनंद्मूर्त्ति भी जुडे रहे (अब स्वर्गीय) जिनकी कॉलेज की पढ़ाई कुछ दिनों तक वहां हरप्रसाद दास जैन कॉलेज में हुई. एम. ए. करने के तुरत बाद मैंने स्वयं उसी कॉलेज में कुछ दिन पढाया था. मेरे बड़े भाई ने अपनी आई.ए. की पढाई उस कॉलेज में की, जहाँ वे हॉस्टल में रहते थे. उनके दो दिली दोस्त वहां थे जो दोनों आरा के महाजन टोली नं. १ में रहते थे – एक थे गौरीशंकर सिन्हा और दूसरे – गिरिराज अग्रवाल.गौरीशंकर सिन्हा बाद में पटना यूनिवर्सिटी में श्रम और समाज कल्याण विभाग में प्रोफ़ेसर हुए (सिगरेट वाली तस्वीर में वे मेरे बड़े भाई के साथ हैं. यह उन्हीं दिनों की तस्वीर है.)

 मेरे बड़े भाई और उनसे भी अधिक गौरी भाई के मौज-मस्ती-मसखरी और दिलबस्तगी के हरवक्त के सामान थे सीधे-सादे गिरिराज भाई. कॉलेज में और कॉलेज के बाद भी इन तीनों की तिकड़ी हमेशा एक साथ ही देखि जाती थी. गिरिराज भाई के घर में खान-पान और पकवान की आफियत रहने के कारण इन तीनों का ज़्यादातर समय वहीँ बीतता था. पढने में मेरे भाई आनंद्मूर्त्ति जी की कॉलेज के प्रोफेसरों में भी बड़ी धाक थी. गौरी भाई पढने में जितने अच्छे थे उससे ज्यादा हंसी-दिल्लगी-मज़ाकपसंदगी में माहिर थे. और ये दोनों कॉलेज में और कॉलेज के बाद के समय में भी गिरिराज भाई का मनोरंजन करते रहते थे. मैं भी उन दिनों कभी-कभी उस मंडली में उपस्थित रहता था, हालांकि मेरी रूचि ज्यादा वहां के खान-पकवान में ही रहती थी. हंसी-ठहाके उस ज़माने की ख़ास पहचान थे, और तीनों दिल खोल कर जोर-जोर से हँसते थे, भले ही मज़ाक किसी का – और ज़्यादातर तो गिरिराज भाई का ही बनता रहता था. अपना मज़ाक बनाने पर भी गिरिराज भाई को मैंने उतने ही जोर के ठहाके लगाते सुना था. मेरे बड़े भाई अंग्रेजी में बहुत पारंगत माने जाते थे. गिरिराज भाई उनसे हमेशा अंग्रेजी के नए-नए शब्द सीखना चाहते थे. इसी प्रसंग में मेरे सामने का एक थोडा अश्लील मजाक मुझे याद आता है (जबकि मैं उम्र में उनलोगों से बहुत छोटा था). एक नारी जननांग के अंग्रेजी नाम को मेरे दोनों मसखरी-पसंद भाइयों ने चुपचाप आपस में राय करके गिरिराज भाई तो अंग्रेजी की प्रसिद्द लेखिका वर्जिनिया वूल्फ की चाची का नाम कह कर सिखा दिया, और जब कॉलेज टुटोरिअल में उन्होंने वही बात बड़े शौक से प्रोफ़ेसर के सामने कही तो सारे क्लास में ठहाकों की लहर देर तक प्रवाहित होती रही और कॉलेज में यह मज़ाक बहुत दिनों तक चलता रहा. ऐसे-ऐसे मसखरी के न जाने कितने प्रसंग रोज़-ब-रोज़ होते रहते थे, लेकिन यह लतीफा बहुत दिनों तक चलता रहा, और उसे मैं उनलोगों की (जो तीनों अब स्वर्गवासी हैं) स्मृति में याद करता हूँ. अश्लीलता भी जीवन का एक अभिन्न अंग है, जिसका उपयोग अक्सर जीवन-हास्य में होता है. अंग्रेजी-पंजाबी के प्रसिद्द लेखक खुशवंत सिंह इसके एक प्रतिमान ही हैं. उन्होंने अश्लीलता को साहित्य के रंग में ऐसा रंग डाला है, जो आनंददायक साहित्य में ढल जाता है.

बहुत बाद में गिरिराज भाई तो आरा में उसी जैन स्कूल के प्रधानाध्यापक हो गए थे और दशकों तक उन्होंने अनेक सुयोग्य विद्यार्थी बनाए जो आज उनको याद करके भावुक हो जाते हैं. मैं भी, जब वे प्रधानाध्यापक हो गए थे, और उन्होंने आरा में ही हरिजी के हाता में अपना नया मकान बनवा लिया था तब अपने बड़े भाई के साथ मैं उनके नए मकान के गृह-प्रवेश में आरा गया था समय तो. बहुत बीत चुका था, लेकिन मेरे बड़े भाई और गिरिराज भाई के दोस्ताने में ज़रा भी अंतर नहीं पड़ा था. वही खान-पकवान और वही ज़ोरदार ठहाके!

अब न वैसे दोस्ताने हैं, न वैसा खान-पकवान और न ही वैसे कान-फाडू ठहाके!              

 

चित्र/आलेख (C) मंगलमूर्त्ति

मेरा पता :एच-७०१, सेलेब्रिटी गार्डन्स, सुशांत गोल्फ सिटी, अंसल API, लखनऊ:२२६०३०

मो. ९४५१८९००२०   bsmmurty@gmail.com

 

 

 

Life’s like that!

 

I have been on the Facebook since 2008. All my internet adventures were handled by my grandson Anuneet Krishna who was then in school. He is now in the US, a power engineer, and still my handler and guide. I have had around a thousand FB friends all these years, appearing and disappearing on my friend list. Now I’ve around 500.

One day I was discovered on FB by my old student Tannaji Bannerji through my daughter Vanita. Tannaji is now a retired Army Colonel living in Ambala, a widower like me. Around 1961, when I had just joined as lecturer in English in RD &DJ College, Munger (Bhagalpur University), Tannaji was my student in I.Sc. Tall and lanky, he was was always more interested in cricket than his classes. I had my own proxy-proof method of roll-call – calling numbers with eyes fixed on the responders’ faces, and only dotting the absentees. This trick completely outwitted the proxy makers, as also some who were adept in slipping out from the side doors of the lecture hall.

Tannaji sent me this story in a post one of these days in Feb. 2023. Here it is with my photograph taken around that time. ( There are many more on this blog in an earlier post!). It’s for everyone to enjoy !.....

 

I was then a first year student in college. Was more eager to enjoy the freedom than aquire knowledge. Not very interested to attend classes. Cloud of notoriety started gathering over family fame.

[ Later he became my neighbour. His family was well-known because of his uncle Sharadendu Bandopadhyay who was a famous Bengali writer of detective fiction.]

Very busy, thrilling life!

It was English period. I sat on my seat.. Near the rear exit ( it was easy to skip you know!) A lady ( yes not a girl) entered through the rear door and sat next to me. She was from senior class. Abha. She looked at me and gave a cute smile and said " I am your senior.. Henceforth I will attend English period with you and sit next to you. You are very cute and I am in love with the professor. " She smiled again. I was shocked. Then " Jyada chu chu karega to dant tod dungi". This type of lingo and behavior was not expected from a 20 odd years old lady. Those days College Girls used to wear saree and keep oilfed long hair. But this lady was wearing trousers and a blue shirt.Her hair was short.

" Ssssh.. He is coming.... "

Then a man entered the classroom. Not very tall... Needed some flesh on his bones. Boyish haircut. He looked like a senior class student.
Kept his books etc and turned to face athe class and adjusted his specks.

" He is a professor!!!? " I was amazed .
" Shut the hell up you *#@**" Abha hissed. " Didn't I tell you I love him and want to marry him? "

The professor introduced himself and started teaching. And I also fell in love of his teaching.
I found Abha in goa when I was posted there. Then lost her.

And I found that professor today.
I salute you sir. I am amazed that you still remember me and Abha too. You remember my cricket too!!

 

Girls in our MA batch

In Darbhanga House (or former palace sold to Patna University) with river Ganga flowing next to its north, on the first floor (at the western end of it), lay our English Dept. Our fifth year classes were held on the southern flank with the sixth year classes at the northern flank facing the riverfront. The doors of our VIth year classes opened to a river view giving us a soothing distraction to boring lectures or in stolen glances towards the girls in our class on the right side front benches. I still remember them all, especially after serendipitously finding this photo in my Patna journey this time (Feb 2-10, 2024).

 All our girl batchmates were quite beautiful: (L-R) : Rosalind Lal. Suman Prabha, Jyotsna Bannerji, Manjushri Mishra,Zenobia Siddiqui and Rama Bannerji. But my favourite was Kokila Bannerji (not in this group). Next, I liked Rosalind. For a while there was some talk of my marriage with Suman, but finally she was married to Kameshwar ( our junior in Vth year), now living in US. Except Suman and Rosalind (obtaining lower grades) in IInd class, all others made it to IIIrd class in the MA results. Otherwise also our batch was considered much poorer in merit (and rather quite boisterous and unruly) than the previous batch of  the famous Meenakshi Mukherji. This photo was taken by me in a picnic on the sands midstream in Ganga in 1958 on New Year’s Eve. Two more of those photos are also given below

I have written a memoir of Dr RK Sinha, our HOD, in his commemoration volume, who gave me a generous testimonial (in my files) when I was seeking admission to Leeds University (UK) where I couldn’t go because my revered father hadn’t the money, nor the will. I have already written above about the injustice perpetrated to me by Dr Sinha both in my results and my BPSC interview for a Patna College appointment purely on caste considerations. Incidentally, I also forgot to mention Mamta Niyogi, my batchmate, who secured a first class in my batch again purely on extraneous considerations.

Memories crowd in of those days of my BA (Hons) and MA studies in Patna College and Patna University, but that must be for some other time. So much only for these lovely photos that ring a bell in my heart!

MY PHOTO GALLERY -1

Here I post some old photos of friends & relatives, mostly taken by me at different times in my life, but mostly during the fifties and sixties, when my passion for photography was at its highest.

I shall continue posting such photographs as I find & choose them. Although this is a completely personal post, not made public at all. And I would like to emphasize that these are all copyrighted and must not be reproduced without permission which may be solicited on bsmmurty@gmail.com.

To the right is Dr RK Sinha, our HOD, English, PU. 

The other photos are introduced in descending order  -

Mother Teresa in Munger in 1981 at the Town Hall  public reception where I (on the mike) was compereing the function and interpreting Mother Teresa in Hindi. Jagannath Mishra, then CM, Bihar, is on the left. 

Below is Dr Walter Hauser & his research assistant, Wendy Singer having tea as he dictates notes at my campus quarter. That was in 1985 when Dr Hauser had come on a research project on Indian Parliamentary elections in Munger constituency. I spent nearly 3 weeks with Dr Hauser touring the constituency as an interpreter and guide.

 

This is Shipra Ganguli, a college days' friend in Patna. Below that a group photo with colleagues in the English Dept of RD&DJ College, Munger in 1960-65, and another larger group with colleagues and college staff around the same time

Below is Bibhakar Jha, son of Prof Janardan Jha 'Dwij'( my father's colleague in Hindi Dept at Rajendra College Chhapara). Bibhakar was my colleague in Philosophy Dept in RD&DJ College, Munger. Then later he joined Jharia College. But died a few years later.

Below id Madan Manohar Varma, my school friend at Patna Collegiate (1949-52), who dis his M.Sc in Zoology from Patna Science College and went for a PhD to US, but died there after retiring as Director of Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, US 

 

 This is Tara Kant Sinha from Munger, 5 years senior to me at Patna College in 1952, who did his MA in Economics in First Class and finally retired from the topmost post of the State Bank of India. He was a close friend of mine and Rana Pratap Sinha, his batchmate in Psychology who retied as HOD from HD Jain College Ara. Both were very fond of singing film songs which tied them together with me in those college days (1952-59). The phot below of the two of them, so inseparable and intimate that their friends used to call them together as TA-RANA.

Below is Rajmani Rai "Mani' a poet friend, Information Officer of PRD, Bihar Govt at Munger who was very popular for his poems which he sang so sweetly. He was also very close to me and I had edited some of his volumes of poems.

Below is an old photo of my classmate at Patna Collegiate School in Patna (1949-52) whom we used to call Buddh Bhai, a promising poet of great merit. This photo was taken at Rajgir where we had gone in a school trip in 1951.

 This ia Madan Varma again , my classmate at Patna Collegiate School who rightly thought that he would emerge as a greater person than myself in life. In the last part of our lives he did emerge as a more successful person in his career. 

At the end of this portfolio is this girl  with a cigarette who turned out to be a close relative of mine in our later life, but who was playing the role of Louka in Shaw's 'Arms and the Man' in a college day function at Patna college around 1955.

One again, below, are these photos of Dr Hauser with Acharya Kapil. And then with my son Ramkrishna Sharan & my daughter Vanita Sharan (that was in 1985) at my campus quarter in RD&DJ College, Munger

All photos (C) Dr BSM Murty