'Those Days' - A Memoir By Ms. Namita Makhal

Days were lazy then, Calcutta air was not so ‘laced with carbon monoxide’, roads were much less crowded, summer evening breezes were much cooler and comforting…
and of course - smiles were offered more often even to complete strangers.

Mornings were much fresher then. Trams, Buses, Lorries, Taxis, ‘Tana rickshows’ all could move at ease through the roads, and life was much easier….

One such autumn morning my father took me to Shyambazar – a well-known area in the Northern part of Calcutta. I found myself in front of a huge black gate of one of the oldest girls’ schools of India.

I was 28.
I had just finished my Teacher’s training from Bullygunge Training College and I got a teacher’s job there, in the legendary school built by Sir Alexander Duff in the mid nineteenth century.

At eighty, today I still remember those days of our smooth and easy life.
I still remember innumerable happy & funny events as clear as the latest DTH (Direct to home) technology picture on a mega LCD TV screen.

It is not like getting into a flash back mode and being emotional, but it is like re-living the lost moment and being able to share the ‘peace of mind’ with people who are running to achieve endless lists of things, keeping no time in hand to enjoy them with their close ones.
Globalization has taught us to - always ‘run’ to win and ‘kill’ to live…..
But as a nation, our philosophy has always been – to be calm and not to rush for things….
Destiny shall anyway bring them to you.

60 years back we believed in that philosophy….and the good thing was – we actually enjoyed and cherished every moment of life….be it a happy moment or a sad moment or a funny moment.
As I have just uttered the word funny, the same moment like a momentary vision I could see a glimpse of this orange-ever moment of my life….
‘Orange’ – because that day all our faces became orange in laughter ….(we all were fair of course!).

Let me share that ‘not so funny now’ story with you all…….

We were a group of teachers – some seniors, some juniors….but we were friends.
Some were ‘bordi’s, some were ‘chhoto’s and some were just affectionate nick-names.
We were a family.
The group had many faces…..some serious, some ever-happy, some less & soft spoken, some ever-abusive (Dolly), some jovial, some very funny (Dipti), some lazy and some absentminded. But the Duff school and its 2nd floor hostel indiscriminatingly sheltered all….

Our salaries were peanuts, but the happiness we could buy with that was enormous.
We had ‘Hati Bagan Market, Shyam Bazaar Market, Hog Sahib’s Market (today’s New market) for shopping and we had Cinema halls like Talkie Show House, Mitra, Sree, Darpana, Radha and many more.
On Fridays we would go out – we would eat, shop, watch the latest ‘Uttam-Suchitra’ flick and return to our school hostel very late to face the furious Ms Bose - our head mistress. Every time we had to lie very innovatively to enter the school premises and the next moment to burst into roars of laughter.

‘Pola di’ and ‘Oboladi’ (meaning of ‘Obola’ is – a lady who can’t speak out strongly) were the ‘forgetful-s’ amongst us. Both were very simple women, far away from the day to day materialistic part of life, and they were the ones who used to take us through great laugh-riots pretty often, by their unmindful trivial activities.

It was a November somewhere in the early 60s, weather was beautiful in Calcutta. We all decided to go for a picnic on a Sunday morning. ‘Batanagar’ was not far and the place was beautiful then, with the ever-flowing Ganges and the nice breeze – termed as ‘Ganga’r Hawa’ in Bengali. The place got its name from the famous shoe company ‘Bata’ - as the Bata factory was situated there.

The ‘not so long journey’ was eventless but the moment we arrived at the spot it became all happy, the Ganges, the breeze, the greenery around, beautiful trees, flowers, the soft sun, the balloon-wala….oh yes! There was this balloon seller with a huge collection of colorful gas balloons (filled with Hydrogen gas, the balloon would fly away if you let the string go).
Well! For us, having a gas balloon in hand, in those days was tasting freedom. Life was simple then and happiness was available on the streets and that too without any price tag.

We played with the balloons for some time and then Poladi retired, she went to sit under a tree and we kept playing.

Then suddenly happiness came close in another form – ‘Phuchkas’ !!!
A Phuchka wala came there.
Phuchka was the milestone invention of India in the global snacks scenario – ping pong ball sized, crispy, thin, fried, flour spheres, filled with mashed massala potato, dipped in spicy tamarine water.

In a few seconds, as the small spheres of eternity melted in our mouth, we were in the heavens. For us ‘phuchkas’ left ‘chocolate’ far behind in the race of ‘intoxication from food’.
We don’t know how long we spent in the heavens and then like always we had to return. We returned to the huge banyan tree, we returned to Poladi.
But, when we were at a distance of - say 100 meters from Poladi, Dipti suddenly said, ‘aarre, where are our balloons..?

We all looked at Poladi. She was in her saintly pose….enjoying the beauty of nature, and possibly meditating in her mind. Her right hand was raised up in the air, holding the strings of all our balloons……but..!!!

BUT WHERE ARE OUR BALOONS…!!!

Her hand was only hanging in air clutching to ‘NOTHING’…

'We ran to her, and exclaimed all together….

‘Poladi where are the balloons…?’

She took a couple of moments to figure out, ‘where she was’ and ‘who we were’…..
And then…..

And then came her reply…

‘What !! You trying to make a fool out of me or what….
can’t you see…’

With a sudden movement she tried bringing her right-hand down towards us……

‘They are here right in front of your eyes…..HERE….!!!’

Her clasped, right-hand ‘whooshes’ through thin air …..and it was empty….
- Empty like a leaf-less tree, empty like the bald man’s head - sitting on the river bank, empty like the cloudless sky….

The balloons flew through her grip - which softened sometime during the ‘nature-admiring state of her mind’.

That was the moment. We had to burst into a roar of laughter…..and we did.

Birds flew away from the Banyan tree…the phuchkawala dropped a phuchka from his hand, a boatman dropped his oar…and we all dropped on the ground…

Poladi made our day once again.


Author is a retired teacher
of Duff High School for Girls (Estd-1857),
Kolkata.
She taught in the legendary school
from 1960 to 1996