Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. We finished college, some grew wings and flew to distant lands; a few, like me, sprouted roots. Shuffling around the college office, I realised on that day that the dice had been cast: henceforth, Landour was where life for me was going to unfold. All I had to do was brace myself for the ride.
‘New teacher?’ Stubby, short and stout Jagdish Babu asked me my date of birth.
Taking my school-leaving certificate, he uttered a date, added sixty years, and like a soothsayer, said: ‘That’s the day you will retire.’
Pic courtesy: Bruce Skillicorn.
And he was right, as correct as a broken clock that gets the time right twice a day. Quietly, without fanfare, one day I found that age had snuck up on me. I think I had joined the ranks of the half-pay pensioners of the world. The next morning, I found myself all dressed up with nowhere to go.
‘Going somewhere?’ teased Tulika, our firstborn. She sneaks me a cup of tea.
‘I’m off to my desk!’ I lied through my teeth. Kind girl that she is, she made sure I got there.
Pic courtesy: the Internet.
Though I admit, I am not tired or even re-tired. Whenever I require expert advice, I usually commune with myself and the lovingly curated books in my library. Every once in a while, I use the ‘dial-a-friend’ option, with interesting, albeit somewhat depressing results.
‘Give me a few minutes,’ the friend replies. ‘I’ll call you back!’
But he never does. ‘Ah! He must be busy!’ I console myself.
At times like these, how I wish growing old had taken a tad longer. As it did for Inder Mani, a hard-working clerk at the bank. You would have found him there working all the days of his life. Steadfastly, he refused promotions or transfers, hanging on for many years until he had become a fixture as permanent as those the old brass railings fixed on the counter. They were hazardous to touch on damp, rainy days.
His colleagues had decided to give him a grand farewell. It was anything but grand; a simple chips-and-chai affair. I saw it all first hand when our genial Bank Manager, Vishal Ohri, invited me to attend the after-office-hours-celebrations. From the tenor of the farewell speeches, one could easily be deluded into mistaking this for a welcome party for a fresher about to join the bank. It was not a get-rid party to honour some over-the-hill fuddy-duddy being pitch-forked out, and trussed up in knotted Chinese whispers:
‘Imagine the loan counter without Inder?’
‘How do we carry on without him?’
‘What is going to happen from tomorrow without him?’
Trouble was, Inder took these whispers a little too seriously. A few days later, visiting the Book Depot opposite the bank, I bumped into his son, who groaned: ‘My father gets dressed up every morning and heads to the bank, where he arrives and sits down on a bench. I have to go there every evening to bring him home.’
Though no one has had to fetch me yet, as friends reassure me: ‘Age is just a number. Sixty is the new forty these days, Ganesh!’
How well I know that those twinges-in-the-hinges are not growing-up pains, especially after I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Sixteen-year-old Niharika suggests with a twinkle in her eyes: ‘Nana! Let’s give you a spin in the dryer! It’ll rid you of those wrinkles and, who knows, might shrink you a few sizes too.’
But spinning makes me giddy. So I chase her away, stubbing my toe against a table in the bargain. I bolt the door and settle down to a bit of undisturbed scribbling, only to realise that the Muses too have gone.
I reassure myself: ‘Slow down, old boy.’
Instead, I peer over those green hedges and listen to the music emanating from the Greyhead’s Club. After three score years and more, you may not be able to choose the music, but the last dance is always yours.
Though some of us insist on arriving with a skid!
Ganesh Saili, born and home-grown in the hills, belongs to those select few whose words are illustrated by their pictures. Author of two dozen books, some translated into twenty languages, his work has found renown worldwide.
