By KULBHUSHAN KAIN
Nostalgia is the aching realization that you can’t go back, but for someone like me who is a romantic-at-heart, I enjoy suffering the pangs of past remembrance.
Come autumn and the old memories of childhood and adulthood knock at the mind’s window, opening multiple doors of long-lost vistas of a life well-lived. The past seems even more distant than the mathematical years, because some of the dates and names are getting blurred. However, the most impactful moments – both joyous and sad – remain sharply in focus. Among them are my years as a struggling unemployed educated youth in the mid-70s in Chandigarh.
Through my nostalgic eye, I recall the autumns of the mid-seventies.
After completing my Post Graduation and having a near disastrous brush with teaching in an evening college in Delhi, I found my way to Chandigarh to live off my brother and brother-in-law, both of whom were in the IAS. I enrolled in the Punjab University for M.Phil and picked up an ad-hoc teaching assignment at the prestigious DAV College for Men. I spent 4 years in the beautiful city. Every day, wished I would get a permanent job in the city.
Chandigarh is one of the earliest planned cities in post-independence India, known for its architecture and urban design, which was prepared by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. Most of the government buildings and housing in the city were designed by a team headed by Le Corbusier, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. Somehow despite familiar critiques of the Corbusier plan’s divisions into class-based sectors and on the bureaucratic atmosphere of the Chandigarh, what I remember are the associations between a stark, pragmatic architectural style, both of the Corbusier master plan and of the red government houses!.
I made friends with a wonderful “cut surd” who smoked stealthilly! He was amongst the few genuine intellectuals I have met in life. He never quoted from texts of Gibran, Camus, Marx or Satre. His words and ideas emanated from his inner soul. He once told me over a drink in a small dhabha in Sector 22 where we had carried a “quarter” of whiskey,
“I have been living a life on generosities and kindness of others. Otherwise I am a very poor man.” He held his gaze for a moment, and then smiled and continued,
“The happiness of this evening I owe to you. Otherwise I think I would have been unhappy”.
He was very profound. He had studied in a government school in Amritsar but spoke excellent English. But he always gave me the impression that something deep inside troubled him. He never discussed it with me, even though we met every day during our research classes in the Gandhi Bhavan in the Punjab University, and in the DAV College where we taught together. It was not money. We never felt the “presence” of money- neither the cars or the design of houses of Chandigarh reflected it as it does today. We both valued a city of clean lines, gardens, trees, outdoor life on bicycles and walks, or motorbike rides, a sizzler at Lyons, a movie in Neelam, and maybe a little aspiration that one day we would be possessing a car !!
One day Inderjit dropped a hint that suggested that his seriousness and penchant for tragedy and Shiv Batalvi could have been a woman. While attending classes for M.Phil, I had taken a liking for a co-student – an attractive girl, Maya (name changed). As the relationship moved onto a higher gear, Inderjit cautioned me,
“Be careful”
“But why?” My passionate and committed mind asked.
“What do you think she likes about you? You don’t have a job, you don’t have a house, you don’t have the looks of Shammi Kapoor, and what if her parents don’t agree to your marriage proposal?. Settle down first”, he said. And after sometime he added,
“Learn from the mistakes of others. Always remember – if you get onto a wrong train, then every station you reach will be a wrong station.” I thought hard. What Inderjit was telling me was true.
Inderjit died two years after we went on different roads. He won a Fullbright Scholarship to Wisconsin University and on return taught history in one of India’s leading public schools and passed away silently in sleep one night. He had married and had one son. I had attended his marriage at Aroma Hotel and he had pulled me aside into a room reserved for him. He then pulled out a quarter and we toasted. It was my last drink with him! He then lit a cigarette and the last words he had uttered to me were
“Kulu. It’s time to go!!”
Go he did. He was just 28 years old.
There is another memory which is etched which involves Chandigarh. Four of my nephews were born in Chandigarh. I remember the birth of one of my nephews. I was in Dehradun at that time and was informed that my sister had gone into labour. I rushed on my scooter via Nahan and reached the PGI where I found my brother-in-law outside the Operation Theatre. He was happy but slightly apprehensive.
“What happened?” I asked him feeling worried.
He narrated an incident which involved him and the world famous gynecologist Dr Sarala Gopalan. When she came to him with a form, prior to performing a caesarian asking him to sign that he would not hold the hospital responsible incase of a mishap, he had requested,
“Doctor, if there is a choice you have to make to sacrifice a life, then please make sure that my wife is not the first choice.”
Dr Sarala Gopalan had smiled. After sometime she came out of the OT, pulled down her green mask and said,
“Congratulations. Both mother and son are fine.”
My brother-in-law was ecstatic.
“Can I see my new born?”
“No.” She had said straightway. “We have given him away to someone because you had said that I could sacrifice him!!” And she had smiled.
Of course nothing like that happened. The very serious looking Dr Sarala Gopalan had a streak of mischievious humour.
Why do I bring in Dr Sarala Goplalan? I bring in all this because she is the maternal aunt of the lady who is vying to be the President of the USA. She used to visit Chandigarh and stay with her aunt whom she called “Chitthi”. She mentioned: “She came to visit me and had a watch in her hand. I said, ‘Kamala, that’s a nice watch’. And the next thing that happened was that she took out the watch and gave it to me. It had a gold strap and everything. She said, ‘You like it, you keep it, Chitthi’.
From the prospective President of the USA, to my philosopher friend, to the red houses and uncrowded streets, to the leisure valley, Rose Garden, Mount View Hotel, Gandhi Bhavan- so much water has flown under the bridge.
I miss Inderjit. He would have surely enlightened me much more than what I am at the moment. Kamala Harris may become the President of the USA. The money of Chandigarh now shouts from its houses. There are huge snarls of traffic. And Maya, the girl Inderjit refrained me from cultivating an intense relationship with – is lost.
I wish I knew where!!!
(Kulbhushan Kain is an award winning educationist with more than 4 decades of working in schools in India and abroad. He is a prolific writer who loves cricket, travelling and cooking. He can be reached at kulbhushan.kain@gmail.com)
