Do You Have Action Replays?

I have this almost every day during periods of inaction, early in the morning, staring at the fan or looking vacantly through the window, in a state of post lunch euphoria or before retiring for the night my cerebral cameras go into action replay and I look at my entire life in flashback.

          This happens, as I said, almost every day. I see myself as greatly pampered child and I remember Dalhousie , Kangra, Pathankot , Fatehgarh , Dhariwal , and Gurdaspur  itself.

          The blackberries at Dalhousie  were out of this world provided you were not afraid of the monkeys, and were willing to venture deep down into the wood. And there was that odd grisly bear, too, but if you were with your elders, he could always be shooed away. Another hazard at Dalhousie were the leeches, which loved nothing better than your blood. Once they got leeched onto you nothing but fire would force them off. They were there by the hundred, and in all shapes and colours, but the ones I detested were of a sickly yellow hue and I used to delight in seeing them dissolve into water by sprinkling table salt over them. And I used to have a packet ready just in case.

          The Dalhousie  monkeys were great thieves and greater mimics. They delighted in scaring the daylights out of you with the unexpected assault. There you were, building castles in the sand or making buses out of Sirolin cartons when out of the blue would a long-tailed monster appear, snatch the Sirolin carton out of your hand, do the hundred yards sprint in three great leaps and mock at you before tearing your bus-to-be into fourteen hundred pieces. (Sirolin, by the way, used to be a cough syrup and was a great All-India  favourite in the forties, and for many years after partition).

          In those days, kitchens used to be at some distance outside the main house, and our rented bungalow in Dalhousie  was no exception, and woe betide the family, which left its door unlocked. The monkeys were always on the lookout for that unguarded half minute during which your kitchen door was open and onto, a whole army would descend and decamp with the chapatis and the koftas  and the pudding and whatever else they could lay their hands on, and would be up, and away before you could say "Boo."

          One day in a fit of anger, one of our neighbours shot a monkey  down and hung him by its tail by the cherry tree. Even in death the blighter appeared to mock at you because it knew what was coming. Its colleagues beat a tactical retreat only to return at the dead hour of night and before the family knew what had happened they had shattered every blessed windowpane in the house before disappearing at supersonic speed.

          As the cerebral cameras whirl away, I can remember myself having a fall in the driveway of our Simla  house and bleeding profusely at a spot slightly below the left knee. A mali comes up and puts a lot of loose earth over my wound to stop the bleeding. This is seen by my grandfather who rushes down to the spot where I lie crying and takes me in his arms and gives the poor mali a terrible dressing down, has the wound washed with boiled water and takes me to a proper doctor who dresses the gash nicely and neatly. On the way back, grandpa buys me more toys than I can count, and the pain is immediately forgotten.

          Gurdaspur , I remember, because our house there had dozens of guava trees and the fruit was absolutely luscious. Also to be found in abundance were lemon trees and juicer lemons I have not seen. Not content with our own guavas, we used to poach on the neighbour's orchard.

          We were caught once or twice and the punishment was terrible. We were taken into the drawing room where on the mantle, there was a photograph of a man we knew was dead because he was all ready for cremation. "Look, if you ever steal guavas again, the Baba Sahib will come back to life and eat you alive. Do you understand?" Warned a fat old lady and her shrill voice rings in my ears to this day.

          The fear would last only a couple of days and we would be back at our poaching job till we had taken the last guava off the last tree in our neighbours' orchard. Needless to say the dreadful old man never came back to life or you wouldn't be seeing these lines in print.

          Dhariwal  was a prosperous little town in Gurdaspur  district with the famous woolen mills of the same name. A great, big canal divided the town. Our house was on the bank of the canal. For a child it was of fearsome proportions. Kishen, a mischievous friend I had, would threaten that if I did not buy him cotton candy or did not run this, that, or the other errand for him, he would throw Chini, my little sister of a year or two, into the canal. This threat always worked and Kishen the lovable rascal had tons of sugar candy and other sweats extorted off a small boy whose only source of income was a poor grandmother's small purse, which had more annas in it than rupees.

          The railway line was not too far away from where we lived in Dhariwal , and to walk along it for miles on end was a special delight. I still remember quite the largest frog that ever lived lying dead on its back on the railway track with its greenish yellow belly making a hideous sight. That frog, I tell you, was larger than the largest rabbit you ever saw. Perhaps it had died of food poisoning or snakebite, one will never know.

          Another Dhariwal  memory. They lighted up the great woolen mills there on May 9, 1945, the day Germany  surrendered to the allies and the war ended in Europe. They invited the children the following day and the Union Jack  was everywhere in evidence and "God  Save the King " was played by a hastily put together band, you could have laughed but for fear of your parents. Nobody laughed when they played "God Save the King" in those days. It was no laughing matter, and it wasn't a bad anthem either, no matter how amateurishly played.

          The apple pies eaten at Pathanko,t the falsas  and melons at Fatehgarh , one remembers to this day together with the riding exploits of an uncle at the latter station.

          Then in Pakistan , at the Central Model High School , the Government College , The Pakistan Times  etc., and now at Dawn . One could do a novel on Mr. Ghulam Nasir Khan of the CMHS and the various teachers at Government College, but why have I gone into this action replay bit today? To honour the memory of Bade Mian , the greatest cook you ever saw. He was Jeeves and Razia ka Shahi Dastarkhwan rolled into one.

          Bade Mian  belonged to Meerut  but had evidently seen the whole of India , serving the British . After partition, he decided to settle in Lahore  and here it was that he spent the last years of his life in the employ of Lil Mo , a dear friend of a quarter of a century now.

          Not only that Bade Mian  was a great cook. He knew what you wanted and when and what's more, he delighted in feeding you. For example, he knew what I fancied more than anything else-minced meat, no spices, very lightly salted with the minimum of grease but lots of ginger plus fresh Chapattis .

          Bade Mian  saw to it that I got what Farmatey hein (Don't you worry, Sir. I'll present that which you fancy most). And it was like that evening after evening, year after year. There never was a kindlier cook and there was magic in his hands.

          He was the connoisseur's cook, the gourmet's cook, and the glutton's cook. He had, in short, a plate for every palate and many is the time that he served twenty people with diametrically opposed culinary preferences and he invariably sent everybody home happy. To borrow the ultimate wish from friend Khalid Hassan , if there is a kitchen in heaven, Bade Mian  must, as surely is its chief chef.

* * * * *

And now for a joke from the BBC 's Test Match Special :

          What would you like to drink?

I'II have a mother-in-law, please.

          What's that?

Stout and bitter.