Obituary
By Shiv Kunal Verma
The passing of Ajai Banerji came as a double whammy because not only was he my house mate and a respected ‘S Former’ when I joined The Doon School in 1972 and was assigned to Hyderabad House B, his younger brother, Sanjai, was in my batch and initially we were in the same room as well. Amitav Ghosh was the house captain, and we had quite a colourful lot of prefects that included Ratish Deo Singh and Danny Modi. Ajai was among the less flamboyant, for by nature he seemed a lot more reticent. However, despite his held back nature, I managed to get a stinging slap from him, for ‘having corrupted’ his brother!
It used to be brutally cold in the morning and the ridiculous regulation sweaters that we wore over singlets did nothing to keep us warm. A month into school, I decided ‘what the heck’ and instead of my PT gear, started changing into my school clothes. Chut Banjo asked if I was ‘excused PT’ and I said no, but was going to brazen it out. The lure of warm stockings pulled Chut Banjo into the world that was inhabited by shammers, crooks and devious characters, so we two strode out confidently to explore The Doon School’s darker side.
‘Oye… you two!’ bellowed Mr Darshan Singh, our PT master, who then wrote ‘182 & 387’ on his pad and sure enough, three hours later our numbers were announced by the Head Master, Col Eric Simeon, during assembly. ‘Please report to Mr Darshan Singh,’ was the grim message. By then, I was beginning to master the art of ‘who sir, me sir, no sir’ and as Darru (Mr Darshan Singh) glared at me, I stuck to my guns and said I was indeed excused. Poor Banjo, who had not quite contemplated organised crime as a lifestyle, meekly looked at his shoes and admitted he was ‘not excused’. Two hours later, Chut Banjo had a Yellow Card, which effectively becomes a black mark on one’s career and is hard to shake off, especially if all your immediate batch are the disgustingly goody, goody types!
Whatever dreams Ajai had for Sanjai had gone up in smoke, so he caught hold of me and with the humongous hand of a sixteen-year old gave my eleven-year old cheek a tight ‘jhaap’, which is usually accompanied by a blue flash and tears! However, Ajai was a gentleman to the core, and having done his brotherly duty, he then treated me quite decently.
Sanjai and I remained in close touch after school, and it filled me with pride when Ajai won the BBC’s Mastermind Crown. ‘He’s my house’, I’d say with unconcealed pride, for a genius amidst the sea of grey and blue, though not uncommon, was still a rarity. Later, when he was teaching at the Doon School, I was shooting ‘Making of a Warrior’ on the Indian Military Academy, and we would sit around on campus and talk of the various Banerji brothers and nephews. I last met him three years ago at the Jaipur Literature Festival where he made it a point to attend the launch of my book, INDUSTANI.
Ajai was a walking encyclopaedia with a bent towards statistics. I would often come across little bits of information on various subjects, ranging from cricket to the railways to the army. For those of us who had the good fortune of knowing him, he was a sincere human being, and in the annals of the Doon School, he will leave his mark as the ‘mastermind’ who topped the BBC charts, which was no mean feat! Rest in peace Ajai, but you will be missed!!
