BUNDLE OF JOY
(a fiction short story)
by
VIKRAM KARVE
It’s a warm Sunday morning in Pune. Let’s go to the apartment of a young Double Income No Kids (DINK) couple in a posh residential complex in Aundh. The man and the woman, both in their late twenties, sit across a table in the drawing room. Let’s hear what they are talking!
“Let’s start with the house,” the man says.
“Okay,” the woman says.
“We bought it for 12. It’s worth 17 today.”
“You keep the house,” the woman says.
“Thanks. I knew you would let me keep it,” the man says with a sigh of relief and opens a folder on the table between them. “I’ve worked it out. Here’s a cheque for 5 Lakhs. I’ll take over all your EMIs and your part of the loan. Have a look at the papers and sign.”
The woman signs the papers without reading, picks up the cheque and puts it in her purse.
“The car. You want to keep it?”
“Of course. It’s on my name. I got the loan, remember!”
“Please. Let’s not start yours and mine again. We agreed the split would be as amicable as possible.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman says a bit contrite.
“It’s just that I thought you’d like to buy a new one.”
“No. I like the Santro.”
“Okay. I’ll make do with my old bike for a few days. Then I’ll go in for the SUV I always wanted.”
The woman looks at the wall-clock. “Oh my God! It’s ten thirty already. The packers and movers will be here any moment. Let’s hurry and finish it off once and for all!”
“Okay. Let’s go room by room,” the man says. He gives the woman a notepad and a pen, “You better write it down, so you can tell the packers.”
“You write,” the woman says.
“Okay. Let’s start with the living room.”
“The TV, DVD, Music System – you can keep everything. I only want all the beautiful wrought iron furniture I’ve specially got made.”
“At least leave me a couple of chairs and a table!” the man pleads.
“Oh, come on! When will you understand? It’s a whole set! You can buy the cheap molded stuff you always liked.”
“Okay. Let’s go to the kitchen.”
“I’ll take the microwave and dishwasher; and some good crockery and cutlery. You keep the stainless steel stuff which you love for its utilitarian value.”
“Don’t be sarcastic!” the man snaps.
“I’m not,” the woman answers, “I’m sick and tired of your ‘Value For Money’ obsession. You never like anything elegant and refined.”
“I prefer to drink the best scotch in a stainless steel tumbler rather than a third rate whisky served in fancy cut-glass!”
“So go ahead Cheapie! Once I leave you can eat out of earthenware bowls and sit on straw mats for all I care! But I like classy stuff. Oh, yes; I’m taking the new carpet you’ve kept packed inside, those new lace curtains and all the curios.”
“Sure. Take anything you want. Except my books!”
“Books! I don’t want any of your books,” the woman says, “That’s all you’ve done. Buy books and wallow in them. With the money you’ve squandered on your books you could have bought me a diamond, the solitaire I wanted for my last birthday.”
“Please Anju! Let’s not start again.”
“Okay Abhi. I’m sorry. Let’s get all this over with as quickly as possible and part as good friends.”
And so they go about it, without a trace of acrimony, scrupulously and systematically, room by room, cupboard by cupboard, item by item – clothes, air conditioner, computer, washing machine, furniture, beds, linen, everything; even the playthings and investments they had diligently accumulated for the baby they had planned to have after they both were well established in their careers – each and every asset in the house is meticulously divided between the two and the woman’s items are segregated, packed and loaded in the truck by the packers.
“Thanks for making it so easy,” the woman says.
“You too!” the man says.
“No hard feelings?”
“No hard feelings! It’s best for both of us.”
“I know. We were mismatched, just not compatible, that’s all.”
“There were good times too!”
“Yes.”
“It had to happen. I’m so happy it’s happened so amicably.”
“Me too. Bye Abhi. Take care,” the woman says and calls out, “Dolly! Dolly!”
A cute and fluffy little snow-white Lhasa Apso dog, who till now was sitting quietly in the balcony, runs up to the woman, excitedly wagging its tail. The woman lovingly picks up the adorable little dog in her arms and begins to walk towards the door.
“Wait. Where are you taking Dolly?” asks the man apprehensively.
“With me, of course,” the woman says.
“No, you’re not! Dolly stays with me!” the man says firmly.
“How can she stay with you?”
“What do you mean ‘how can she stay with me’? This is her house. She will stay here like she has stayed all these days. I’ll look after her.”
“No. I’m taking Dolly with me. Look how she’s cuddling in my arms.”
“She cuddles in my arms too! Dolly stays with me.You can’t take her.”
“I’m taking her. Try stopping me!” the woman says defiantly and moves towards the door.
In a flash, the man rushes to the door and blocks her way. The dog senses the tension and stiffens.
“Look, you’re scaring her,” the woman says.
“Give her to me,” the man says, takes Dolly in his arms and begins baby-talking to her, petting her and gently fondling her neck lovingly with his hand. The dog relaxes, snuggles and begins licking his hands.
“Be reasonable, Abhi,” the woman says. “I always assumed Dolly would be coming with me. That’s why I’ve found a ground floor flat with a small garden where she can play. She feels cooped up here and you’ll find it difficult to look after her.”
“How can you assume such things? She’s staying with me. I’ll look after her. You don’t worry.”
“Don’t be stubborn, Abhi! Give her to me please.”
“No. Dolly stays here with me.”
“I’m not going without her.”
“Don’t go.”
“What do you mean ‘Don’t go’! We had agreed to the separation. That we would work out things amicably. That there would be no acrimony or rancor and we would always remain good friends. Then why this bitterness at the last moment? Please give Dolly to me.”
“No. Dolly stays with me. I can’t live without her.”
“I too can’t live without her.”
“Then stay here!”
“Okay. I’ll stay put right here,” the woman says defiantly. “I’m not moving an inch from here till such time you don’t let me take Dolly with me.”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
In the evening, the man and the woman are playing with their cute little dog, Dolly, on the lush green lawns of their residential complex.
Epilogue
Three years ago when our protagonists, the man and the woman, newly married, were in Shillong for their honeymoon, their jolly dog-loving uncle, a retired Colonel, presented them with a beautiful month old baby female Lhasa Apso pup as a wedding gift. He had already named her Dolly. The Colonel’s wife scolded him saying that the pet would encumber the young couple’s married life. In fact, the darling pet saved their marriage. She turned out to be their bundle of joy.
BUNDLE OF JOY – A fiction short story by VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
Monday, May 22, 2006
Monday, May 15, 2006
Empress Court
EMPRESS COURT
The next time you visit South Mumbai, go to Churchgate, admire the beautiful Art Deco style façade of the Eros Cinema, an architectural landmark, which marks the beginning of the Art Deco district of Oval Precinct; and start walking southwards down Maharshi Karve Road, passing Eros, Sundance cafe to your right, the verdant Oval Maidan across the road to your left.
Keep walking past splendid Art Deco buildings like Court View, Queens Court, Greenfield, Windsor, Rajesh Mansion; stop at the T-junction with Dinsha Vachha Road, look across the road and you will see the most magnificent of them all – Empress Court.
Pause for a moment to appreciate the splendid pista green building with its exquisite façade. Then cross the road, walk through the elegant entrance, climb up the wooden spiral staircase to the second floor and ring the doorbell. If you had come just a few days earlier, I would have opened the door – for this is the place where I spent the six best years of my life. Oh yes! How can I ever forget Empress Court – the best house I have ever lived in!
Let’s go in. A huge hall, dining room to the left, drawing room to the right, airy windows and a cute circular balcony. Stand in the balcony and admire Mumbai University’s Rajabai Clock Tower right in front of you across the Oval, the High Court to its left and Old Secretariat to the right; all Gothic style majestic structures in stone.
Walk through the airy cool rooms, each with a balcony with excellent views. Open the doors and windows and enjoy the refreshing sea breeze. It’s heavenly. Words cannot describe the blissful delight I felt when I lived here. Close your eyes and think of GB Mhatre, the architect who crafted and designed this elegant apartment house.
Empress Court, facing the Rajabai Clock Tower, on the western side of the Oval, is a part of the heritage Fort precinct. The lush green Oval Maidan, a Heritage Grade I precinct, an open space colonial pattern esplanada of scenic beauty, acting as a buffer between two architectural period styles – the Gothic buildings of the Mumbai University, Bombay High Court and Old Secretariat to the east and Art Deco district to its west.
The location of Empress Court is ideal. There is the Oxford Bookstore next door where I spent delightful hours browsing books on elegant orange rocking chairs, refreshing myself with delicious cups of invigorating teas in the Cha Bar. Just a short walk and you are at Marine Drive. The Business and Art districts, education, museums, sightseeing, shopping, good food, entertainment, night life, clubs, sports, bus and railway stations – everything is so nearby. You’re right in the centre of everything that’s happening in Mumbai.
I shall never forget the clock atop Rajabai Tower which woke me up at six every morning, the metamorphosis at sunrise as the sun rose every morning between the tall BSE building and the Clock Tower, the soothing green Oval maidan, football matches at the Cooperage, and the calm tranquil sunsets on Marine Drive.
Thank you Empress Court. I shall always cherish the six years I spent with you - the best years of my life in the best place I have ever lived in.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
The next time you visit South Mumbai, go to Churchgate, admire the beautiful Art Deco style façade of the Eros Cinema, an architectural landmark, which marks the beginning of the Art Deco district of Oval Precinct; and start walking southwards down Maharshi Karve Road, passing Eros, Sundance cafe to your right, the verdant Oval Maidan across the road to your left.
Keep walking past splendid Art Deco buildings like Court View, Queens Court, Greenfield, Windsor, Rajesh Mansion; stop at the T-junction with Dinsha Vachha Road, look across the road and you will see the most magnificent of them all – Empress Court.
Pause for a moment to appreciate the splendid pista green building with its exquisite façade. Then cross the road, walk through the elegant entrance, climb up the wooden spiral staircase to the second floor and ring the doorbell. If you had come just a few days earlier, I would have opened the door – for this is the place where I spent the six best years of my life. Oh yes! How can I ever forget Empress Court – the best house I have ever lived in!
Let’s go in. A huge hall, dining room to the left, drawing room to the right, airy windows and a cute circular balcony. Stand in the balcony and admire Mumbai University’s Rajabai Clock Tower right in front of you across the Oval, the High Court to its left and Old Secretariat to the right; all Gothic style majestic structures in stone.
Walk through the airy cool rooms, each with a balcony with excellent views. Open the doors and windows and enjoy the refreshing sea breeze. It’s heavenly. Words cannot describe the blissful delight I felt when I lived here. Close your eyes and think of GB Mhatre, the architect who crafted and designed this elegant apartment house.
Empress Court, facing the Rajabai Clock Tower, on the western side of the Oval, is a part of the heritage Fort precinct. The lush green Oval Maidan, a Heritage Grade I precinct, an open space colonial pattern esplanada of scenic beauty, acting as a buffer between two architectural period styles – the Gothic buildings of the Mumbai University, Bombay High Court and Old Secretariat to the east and Art Deco district to its west.
The location of Empress Court is ideal. There is the Oxford Bookstore next door where I spent delightful hours browsing books on elegant orange rocking chairs, refreshing myself with delicious cups of invigorating teas in the Cha Bar. Just a short walk and you are at Marine Drive. The Business and Art districts, education, museums, sightseeing, shopping, good food, entertainment, night life, clubs, sports, bus and railway stations – everything is so nearby. You’re right in the centre of everything that’s happening in Mumbai.
I shall never forget the clock atop Rajabai Tower which woke me up at six every morning, the metamorphosis at sunrise as the sun rose every morning between the tall BSE building and the Clock Tower, the soothing green Oval maidan, football matches at the Cooperage, and the calm tranquil sunsets on Marine Drive.
Thank you Empress Court. I shall always cherish the six years I spent with you - the best years of my life in the best place I have ever lived in.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Book Review - The Autobiography of Maharshi Karve
Book Review
The Autobiography of Maharshi Karve : “Looking Back” by Dhondo Keshav Karve (1936)
Reviewed by Vikram Waman Karve
The Book : Looking Back
The Author : Dhondo Keshav Karve
First Published in 1936
Looking Back ( The Autobiography ) by Dhondo Keshav Karve
( Maharshi Karve ) with a preface by Frederick J. Gould.
Dear Reader, you must be wondering why I am reviewing an autobiography written in 1936. Well, till recently I stayed on Maharshi Karve Road in Mumbai. I share the same surname as the author. Also, I happen to be the great grandson of Maharshi Karve. But, beyond that, compared to him I am a nobody – not even a pygmy.
Maharshi Karve clearly knew his goal, persisted ceaselessly throughout his life with missionary zeal and transformed the destiny of the Indian Woman. The first university for women in India - The SNDT University and educational institutions for women covering the entire spectrum ranging from pre-primary schools to post-graduate, engineering, vocational and professional colleges bear eloquent testimony to his indomitable spirit, untiring perseverance and determined efforts.
In his preface, Frederick J Gould writes that “the narrative is a parable of his career” – a most apt description of the autobiography. The author tells his life-story in a simple straightforward manner, with remarkable candour and humility; resulting in a narrative which is friendly, interesting and readable.
Autobiographies are sometimes voluminous tomes, but this a small book, 200 pages, and a very easy comfortable enjoyable read that makes it almost unputdownable. Dr. DK Karve writes a crisp, flowing narrative of his life, interspersed with his views and anecdotes, in simple, straightforward style which facilitates the reader to visualize through the author’s eyes the places, period, people and events pertaining to his life and times and the trials and tribulations he faced and struggled to conquer.
Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve was born on 18th of April 1858. In the first few chapters he writes about Murud, his native place in Konkan, Maharashtra, his ancestry and his early life– the description is so vivid that you can clearly “see” through the author’s eye. His struggle to appear in the public service examination ( walking 110 miles in torrential rain and difficult terrain to Satara), and the shattering disappointment at not being allowed to appear because “he looked too young”, make poignant reading.
“Many undreamt of things have happened in my life and given a different turn to my career” he writes, and then goes on to describe his high school and, later, college education at The Wilson College Bombay (Mumbai) narrating various incidents that convinced him of the role of destiny and serendipity in shaping his life and career as a teacher and then Professor of Mathematics.
He married at the age of fourteen but began his marital life at the age of twenty! This was the custom of those days. Let’s read the author’s own words on his domestic life: “ … I was married at the age of fourteen and my wife was then eight. Her family lived very near to ours and we knew each other very well and had often played together. However after marriage we had to forget our old relation as playmates and to behave as strangers, often looking toward each other but never standing together to exchange words…. We had to communicate with each other through my sister…… My marital life began under the parental roof at Murud when I was twenty…” Their domestic bliss was short lived as his wife died after a few years leaving behind a son… “Thus ended the first part of my domestic life”… he concludes in crisp style.
An incident highlighting the plight of a widow left an indelible impression on him and germinated in him the idea of widow remarriage. He married Godubai, who was widowed when she was only eight years old, was a sister of his friend Mr. Joshi, and now twenty three was studying at Pandita Ramabai’s Sharada Sadan as its first widow student.
Let’s read in the author’s own words how he asked for her hand in marriage to her father – “ I told him…..I had made up my mind to marry a widow. He sat silent for a minute and then hinted that there was no need to go in search of such a bride”.
He describes in detail the ostracism he faced from some orthodox quarters and systematically enunciates his life work - his organization of the Widow Marriage Association, Hindu Widows Home, Mahila Vidyalaya, Nishkama Karma Math, and other institutions, culminating in the birth of the first Indian Women’s University ( SNDT University).
The trials and tribulations he faced in his life-work of emancipation of education of women (widows in particular) and how he overcame them by his persistent steadfast endeavours and indomitable spirit makes illuminating reading and underlines the fact that Dr. DK Karve was no arm-chair social reformer but a person devoted to achieve his dreams on the ground in reality.
These chapters form the meat of the book and make compelling reading. His dedication and meticulousness is evident in the appendices where he has given datewise details of his engagements and subscriptions down to the paisa for his educational institutions from various places he visited around the world to propagate their cause.
He then describes his world tour, at the ripe age of 71, to meet eminent educationists to propagate the cause of the Women’s University, his later domestic life and ends with a few of his views and ideas for posterity. At the end of the book, concluding his autobiography, he writes: “Here ends the story of my life. I hope this simple story will serve some useful purpose”.
He wrote this in 1936. He lived on till the 9th of November 1962, achieving so much more on the way, was conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters ( D.Litt.) by the Banaras Hindu University in 1942 followed by Poona in 1951, SNDT in 1955, and Bombay(LL.D.) in 1957. Maharshi Karve received the Padma Vibhushan in 1955 and the nation’s highest honour the “Bharat Ratna” in 1958, a fitting tribute on his centenary at the age of 100.
Epilogue
I was born in 1956, and have fleeting memories of Maharshi Karve, during our visits to Hingne Stree Sikshan Samstha in 1961-62, as a small boy of 5 or 6 can. My mother tells me that I featured in a films division documentary on him during his centenary celebrations in 1958 ( I must have been barely two, maybe one and a half years old ) and there is a photograph of him and his great grand children in which I feature. It is from some old timers and other people and mainly from books that I learn of his pioneering work in transforming the destiny of the Indian Woman and I thought I should share this.
I have written this book review with the hope that some of us, particularly the students and alumni of SNDT University, Cummins College of Engineering for Women, SOFT, Karve Institute of Social Sciences and other educational institutions who owe their very genesis and existence to Maharshi Karve, read about his stellar pioneering work and draw inspiration from his autobiography.
Two other good books pertaining to the life of Maharshi Karve which I have read are : Maharshi Karve by Ganesh L. Chandavarkar, Popular Prakashan (1958) and Maharshi Karve – His 105 years, Hingne Stree Shikshan Samstha (1963).
VIKRAM WAMAN KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
The Autobiography of Maharshi Karve : “Looking Back” by Dhondo Keshav Karve (1936)
Reviewed by Vikram Waman Karve
The Book : Looking Back
The Author : Dhondo Keshav Karve
First Published in 1936
Looking Back ( The Autobiography ) by Dhondo Keshav Karve
( Maharshi Karve ) with a preface by Frederick J. Gould.
Dear Reader, you must be wondering why I am reviewing an autobiography written in 1936. Well, till recently I stayed on Maharshi Karve Road in Mumbai. I share the same surname as the author. Also, I happen to be the great grandson of Maharshi Karve. But, beyond that, compared to him I am a nobody – not even a pygmy.
Maharshi Karve clearly knew his goal, persisted ceaselessly throughout his life with missionary zeal and transformed the destiny of the Indian Woman. The first university for women in India - The SNDT University and educational institutions for women covering the entire spectrum ranging from pre-primary schools to post-graduate, engineering, vocational and professional colleges bear eloquent testimony to his indomitable spirit, untiring perseverance and determined efforts.
In his preface, Frederick J Gould writes that “the narrative is a parable of his career” – a most apt description of the autobiography. The author tells his life-story in a simple straightforward manner, with remarkable candour and humility; resulting in a narrative which is friendly, interesting and readable.
Autobiographies are sometimes voluminous tomes, but this a small book, 200 pages, and a very easy comfortable enjoyable read that makes it almost unputdownable. Dr. DK Karve writes a crisp, flowing narrative of his life, interspersed with his views and anecdotes, in simple, straightforward style which facilitates the reader to visualize through the author’s eyes the places, period, people and events pertaining to his life and times and the trials and tribulations he faced and struggled to conquer.
Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve was born on 18th of April 1858. In the first few chapters he writes about Murud, his native place in Konkan, Maharashtra, his ancestry and his early life– the description is so vivid that you can clearly “see” through the author’s eye. His struggle to appear in the public service examination ( walking 110 miles in torrential rain and difficult terrain to Satara), and the shattering disappointment at not being allowed to appear because “he looked too young”, make poignant reading.
“Many undreamt of things have happened in my life and given a different turn to my career” he writes, and then goes on to describe his high school and, later, college education at The Wilson College Bombay (Mumbai) narrating various incidents that convinced him of the role of destiny and serendipity in shaping his life and career as a teacher and then Professor of Mathematics.
He married at the age of fourteen but began his marital life at the age of twenty! This was the custom of those days. Let’s read the author’s own words on his domestic life: “ … I was married at the age of fourteen and my wife was then eight. Her family lived very near to ours and we knew each other very well and had often played together. However after marriage we had to forget our old relation as playmates and to behave as strangers, often looking toward each other but never standing together to exchange words…. We had to communicate with each other through my sister…… My marital life began under the parental roof at Murud when I was twenty…” Their domestic bliss was short lived as his wife died after a few years leaving behind a son… “Thus ended the first part of my domestic life”… he concludes in crisp style.
An incident highlighting the plight of a widow left an indelible impression on him and germinated in him the idea of widow remarriage. He married Godubai, who was widowed when she was only eight years old, was a sister of his friend Mr. Joshi, and now twenty three was studying at Pandita Ramabai’s Sharada Sadan as its first widow student.
Let’s read in the author’s own words how he asked for her hand in marriage to her father – “ I told him…..I had made up my mind to marry a widow. He sat silent for a minute and then hinted that there was no need to go in search of such a bride”.
He describes in detail the ostracism he faced from some orthodox quarters and systematically enunciates his life work - his organization of the Widow Marriage Association, Hindu Widows Home, Mahila Vidyalaya, Nishkama Karma Math, and other institutions, culminating in the birth of the first Indian Women’s University ( SNDT University).
The trials and tribulations he faced in his life-work of emancipation of education of women (widows in particular) and how he overcame them by his persistent steadfast endeavours and indomitable spirit makes illuminating reading and underlines the fact that Dr. DK Karve was no arm-chair social reformer but a person devoted to achieve his dreams on the ground in reality.
These chapters form the meat of the book and make compelling reading. His dedication and meticulousness is evident in the appendices where he has given datewise details of his engagements and subscriptions down to the paisa for his educational institutions from various places he visited around the world to propagate their cause.
He then describes his world tour, at the ripe age of 71, to meet eminent educationists to propagate the cause of the Women’s University, his later domestic life and ends with a few of his views and ideas for posterity. At the end of the book, concluding his autobiography, he writes: “Here ends the story of my life. I hope this simple story will serve some useful purpose”.
He wrote this in 1936. He lived on till the 9th of November 1962, achieving so much more on the way, was conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters ( D.Litt.) by the Banaras Hindu University in 1942 followed by Poona in 1951, SNDT in 1955, and Bombay(LL.D.) in 1957. Maharshi Karve received the Padma Vibhushan in 1955 and the nation’s highest honour the “Bharat Ratna” in 1958, a fitting tribute on his centenary at the age of 100.
Epilogue
I was born in 1956, and have fleeting memories of Maharshi Karve, during our visits to Hingne Stree Sikshan Samstha in 1961-62, as a small boy of 5 or 6 can. My mother tells me that I featured in a films division documentary on him during his centenary celebrations in 1958 ( I must have been barely two, maybe one and a half years old ) and there is a photograph of him and his great grand children in which I feature. It is from some old timers and other people and mainly from books that I learn of his pioneering work in transforming the destiny of the Indian Woman and I thought I should share this.
I have written this book review with the hope that some of us, particularly the students and alumni of SNDT University, Cummins College of Engineering for Women, SOFT, Karve Institute of Social Sciences and other educational institutions who owe their very genesis and existence to Maharshi Karve, read about his stellar pioneering work and draw inspiration from his autobiography.
Two other good books pertaining to the life of Maharshi Karve which I have read are : Maharshi Karve by Ganesh L. Chandavarkar, Popular Prakashan (1958) and Maharshi Karve – His 105 years, Hingne Stree Shikshan Samstha (1963).
VIKRAM WAMAN KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
Friday, April 28, 2006
Banter
BANTER
(a fiction short story)
by
VIKRAM KARVE
It’s late and the bar at the Savoy is almost empty. There are just three people – a couple, a man and woman, in their thirties, sit together on a sofa; and on the sofa just behind them sits a solitary man, unseen, in the shadows.
It is quite dark as the lights are dim; in fact the lights are so dim that the man and woman can hardly see each other’s face. They have been drinking for quite some time, and, in fact, the woman appears pleasantly drunk as she engages the man in some lighthearted banter, slurring loudly as she speaks.
“She dumped you, isn’t it?” the woman says.
“No. That’s not true. Leena didn’t dump me. It was I who left her!” the man says emphatically.
“Come on, Anil. You think I don’t know everything about you two?”
“You don’t. You know nothing. It was I who left her. I told you once; I’m telling you again! She didn’t dump me. I didn’t want to live with her, so I left her.”
“Don’t fib!”
“Fib? Why should I?”
“Masculine pride!”
“Masculine pride? What nonsense!”
“When a man ditches a woman she gains sympathy; but when a woman dumps a man he becomes a laughing stock, a subject of ridicule.”
“So?”
“That’s why you ran away from Bangalore after spreading lies all around that you were the one who had split up with her, when actually it was Leena who had dumped you unceremoniously,” the woman jeers loudly.
“Talk softly,” the man says.
“Why? Afraid of the truth, is it?”
“I told you it’s not true. We had our differences. And I wanted a change of job.”
“You know why she dumped you? Because you are a bloody ‘loser’. A born loser!”
“Who told you that?”
“She did. You want to hear Leena’s exact words : ‘Anil is a born loser who is content to wallow in the gutter and see others climb mountains’. That’s why she left you. She didn’t want to ruin her life with a man without a future, a namby-pamby who had no ambition, no drive – a good for nothing geek.”
“Namby-pamby! Good for nothing geek?”
“That’s what she told me.”
“She told you? When? Where?”
“Last year. In Hyderabad. During this same annual IT Seminar. She’d flown down from the States. She even presented a paper – I’m sure it was plagiarized from something you had written or from the notes you kept giving her about your work and research.”
“I’m not interested!”
“Leena is real smart. A real scheming bitch. Mesmerizes you with her wily charms, uses you and then jettisons you, just throws you away when she’s got what she’s wanted. Like toilet paper! Or you know what?” the woman starts giggling, “She treated you like a sanitary napkin! Use and throw straight into the dustbin.”
“Shut up, will you?” the man shouts angrily, “Let’s go now. You’re drunk.”
“I still remember our Bangalore days. When you used to grovel at her feet, your tongue drooling like a lapdog. And now look where she’s reached – the hot shot CEO of a top IT company while you wallow in shit as a nobody in some nondescript place.”
“Please, Nanda! Let’s go,” the man says exasperated.
But the woman is in no mood to go, ignores him, and continues talking loudly: “Leena is smart! She told me she’d managed to hook some NRI Head Honcho. He’s an American citizen too. Her life is made!”
“Maybe, she’ll use him and dump him too!” the man says sardonically.
“Hey! You’ve accepted it! You’ve accepted that she dumped you. I was right! That calls for a drink.”
“No. You’ve already had three big bottles of beer.”
“Who’s counting?” the woman says happily, lurching from her seat, “Okay. If I’ve had too much beer, now I’ll have whisky!” She picks up the man’s glass, drinks it bottoms up in one go, and exclaims at the top of her voice: “Cheers! Down the hatch!”
“What’s wrong with you?” the man scolds her. Don’t you know, “Beer and whisky – it’s risky.”
“And frisky! I want to feel frisky.”
“You mustn’t drink so much.”
“Why?”
“Someone may take advantage of you!”
“Ha! Maybe I want to be taken advantage of? Come, take advantage of me,” she says loudly and snuggles up to him, “Come. Cuddle me. Do something naughty to me. Like you used to do to Leena.”
“Shut up. Someone will hear!”
“There is no one here.”
“There is,” Anil says, noticing the solitary figure in the shadows for the first time. He moves close to Nanda and whispers into her ear, “don’t look behind you.”
“Where?” she shouts in surprise and turns around. She sees the silhouette of the man and calls to him, “Hey eavesdropper, why don’t you join us?”
“Thanks. But it’s okay. I’m fine here,” the stranger says.
“No! No! Come on. Have a drink with us. Don’t be a snob!” the woman shouts drunkenly, tries to get up and reels towards him, and seeing her swaying, the stranger quickly joins them, pulling up a chair opposite the sofa.
“I hope we have not been disturbing you,” Anil says, “We’re sorry. We thought we were all alone in the bar.”
“Not at all!” the stranger says, “in fact, I’ve been enjoying your banter.”
“Good. That calls for a drink!” the woman says.
“Certainly. It’s on me,” the stranger says.
“Nanda. Please. I think we’ve had enough,” Anil pleads.
“I insist,” the stranger says, “just one last drink.”
“Just one last drink!” Nanda repeats drunkenly, “and then the real surprise!”
“Surprise?” Anil asks.
“We’ll all go and wake up Leena!”
“What? Leena? She’s here? In Mussoorie?” Anil asks incredulously.
“Yes, my dear. She’s coming for the seminar too. Must have arrived in the evening when we had gone out for our romantic walk to Lal Tibba.”
“How do you know?”
“E-mail! I was the one who called her for this seminar.”
“You didn’t tell me!”
“Of course not. And I didn’t tell her that I had called you either.”
“I’m going back!” Anil says.
“You still desperately love her, don’t you? After all that she’s done to you; destroyed you. You’re scared of her aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Then why are you afraid of facing her? Come on, Anil, be a man! Ask her why she dumped you,” Nanda says. She pulls Anil’s hand and lurches towards the entrance, “Come. We’ll go to the reception and find out in which room Leena is staying.”
“She’s in room 406,” the stranger says.
“How do you know?” Nanda asks wide-eyed, trying to focus on the stranger.
“I’m Leena’s husband,” the stranger says matter-of-factly. He keeps his glass on the table and silently walks out of the bar.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
(a fiction short story)
by
VIKRAM KARVE
It’s late and the bar at the Savoy is almost empty. There are just three people – a couple, a man and woman, in their thirties, sit together on a sofa; and on the sofa just behind them sits a solitary man, unseen, in the shadows.
It is quite dark as the lights are dim; in fact the lights are so dim that the man and woman can hardly see each other’s face. They have been drinking for quite some time, and, in fact, the woman appears pleasantly drunk as she engages the man in some lighthearted banter, slurring loudly as she speaks.
“She dumped you, isn’t it?” the woman says.
“No. That’s not true. Leena didn’t dump me. It was I who left her!” the man says emphatically.
“Come on, Anil. You think I don’t know everything about you two?”
“You don’t. You know nothing. It was I who left her. I told you once; I’m telling you again! She didn’t dump me. I didn’t want to live with her, so I left her.”
“Don’t fib!”
“Fib? Why should I?”
“Masculine pride!”
“Masculine pride? What nonsense!”
“When a man ditches a woman she gains sympathy; but when a woman dumps a man he becomes a laughing stock, a subject of ridicule.”
“So?”
“That’s why you ran away from Bangalore after spreading lies all around that you were the one who had split up with her, when actually it was Leena who had dumped you unceremoniously,” the woman jeers loudly.
“Talk softly,” the man says.
“Why? Afraid of the truth, is it?”
“I told you it’s not true. We had our differences. And I wanted a change of job.”
“You know why she dumped you? Because you are a bloody ‘loser’. A born loser!”
“Who told you that?”
“She did. You want to hear Leena’s exact words : ‘Anil is a born loser who is content to wallow in the gutter and see others climb mountains’. That’s why she left you. She didn’t want to ruin her life with a man without a future, a namby-pamby who had no ambition, no drive – a good for nothing geek.”
“Namby-pamby! Good for nothing geek?”
“That’s what she told me.”
“She told you? When? Where?”
“Last year. In Hyderabad. During this same annual IT Seminar. She’d flown down from the States. She even presented a paper – I’m sure it was plagiarized from something you had written or from the notes you kept giving her about your work and research.”
“I’m not interested!”
“Leena is real smart. A real scheming bitch. Mesmerizes you with her wily charms, uses you and then jettisons you, just throws you away when she’s got what she’s wanted. Like toilet paper! Or you know what?” the woman starts giggling, “She treated you like a sanitary napkin! Use and throw straight into the dustbin.”
“Shut up, will you?” the man shouts angrily, “Let’s go now. You’re drunk.”
“I still remember our Bangalore days. When you used to grovel at her feet, your tongue drooling like a lapdog. And now look where she’s reached – the hot shot CEO of a top IT company while you wallow in shit as a nobody in some nondescript place.”
“Please, Nanda! Let’s go,” the man says exasperated.
But the woman is in no mood to go, ignores him, and continues talking loudly: “Leena is smart! She told me she’d managed to hook some NRI Head Honcho. He’s an American citizen too. Her life is made!”
“Maybe, she’ll use him and dump him too!” the man says sardonically.
“Hey! You’ve accepted it! You’ve accepted that she dumped you. I was right! That calls for a drink.”
“No. You’ve already had three big bottles of beer.”
“Who’s counting?” the woman says happily, lurching from her seat, “Okay. If I’ve had too much beer, now I’ll have whisky!” She picks up the man’s glass, drinks it bottoms up in one go, and exclaims at the top of her voice: “Cheers! Down the hatch!”
“What’s wrong with you?” the man scolds her. Don’t you know, “Beer and whisky – it’s risky.”
“And frisky! I want to feel frisky.”
“You mustn’t drink so much.”
“Why?”
“Someone may take advantage of you!”
“Ha! Maybe I want to be taken advantage of? Come, take advantage of me,” she says loudly and snuggles up to him, “Come. Cuddle me. Do something naughty to me. Like you used to do to Leena.”
“Shut up. Someone will hear!”
“There is no one here.”
“There is,” Anil says, noticing the solitary figure in the shadows for the first time. He moves close to Nanda and whispers into her ear, “don’t look behind you.”
“Where?” she shouts in surprise and turns around. She sees the silhouette of the man and calls to him, “Hey eavesdropper, why don’t you join us?”
“Thanks. But it’s okay. I’m fine here,” the stranger says.
“No! No! Come on. Have a drink with us. Don’t be a snob!” the woman shouts drunkenly, tries to get up and reels towards him, and seeing her swaying, the stranger quickly joins them, pulling up a chair opposite the sofa.
“I hope we have not been disturbing you,” Anil says, “We’re sorry. We thought we were all alone in the bar.”
“Not at all!” the stranger says, “in fact, I’ve been enjoying your banter.”
“Good. That calls for a drink!” the woman says.
“Certainly. It’s on me,” the stranger says.
“Nanda. Please. I think we’ve had enough,” Anil pleads.
“I insist,” the stranger says, “just one last drink.”
“Just one last drink!” Nanda repeats drunkenly, “and then the real surprise!”
“Surprise?” Anil asks.
“We’ll all go and wake up Leena!”
“What? Leena? She’s here? In Mussoorie?” Anil asks incredulously.
“Yes, my dear. She’s coming for the seminar too. Must have arrived in the evening when we had gone out for our romantic walk to Lal Tibba.”
“How do you know?”
“E-mail! I was the one who called her for this seminar.”
“You didn’t tell me!”
“Of course not. And I didn’t tell her that I had called you either.”
“I’m going back!” Anil says.
“You still desperately love her, don’t you? After all that she’s done to you; destroyed you. You’re scared of her aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Then why are you afraid of facing her? Come on, Anil, be a man! Ask her why she dumped you,” Nanda says. She pulls Anil’s hand and lurches towards the entrance, “Come. We’ll go to the reception and find out in which room Leena is staying.”
“She’s in room 406,” the stranger says.
“How do you know?” Nanda asks wide-eyed, trying to focus on the stranger.
“I’m Leena’s husband,” the stranger says matter-of-factly. He keeps his glass on the table and silently walks out of the bar.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
Monday, April 17, 2006
Life Process Outsourcing - a short story by Vikram Karve
Life Process Outsourcing
by
Vikram Karve
( a fiction short story )
On the morning of New Year’s Eve, while I was loafing on Main Street, I meet an old friend of mine.
“Hi!” I say.
“Hi,” he says, “where to?”
“Aimless loitering,” I say, “And you?”
“I’m going to work.”
“Work? This early? I thought your shift starts in the evening, or late at night. You work at a call center don’t you?”
“Not now. I quit. I’m on my own now.”
“On your own? What do you do?”
“LPO.”
“LPO? What’s that?”
“Life Process Outsourcing.”
“Life Process Outsourcing? Never heard of it!”
“You’ve heard of Business Process Outsourcing haven’t you?”
“BPO? Outsourcing non-core business activities and functions.”
“Precisely. LPO is similar to BPO. There it’s Business Processes which are outsourced, here it’s Life Processes.”
“Life Processes? Outsourced?”
“Why don’t you come along with me? I’ll show you.”
Soon we are in his office. It looks like a mini call center.
A young attractive girl welcomes us. “Meet Rita, my Manager,” my friend says, and introduces us.
Rita looks distraught, and says to my friend, “ I’m not feeling well. Must be viral fever.”
“No problem. My friend here will stand in.”
“What? I don’t have a clue about all this LPO thing!” I protest.
“There’s nothing like learning on the job! Rita will show you.”
“It’s simple,” Rita says, in a hurry. “See the console. You just press the appropriate switch and route the call to the appropriate person or agency.” And with these words she disappears. It’s the shortest training I have ever had in my life.
And so I plunge into the world of Life Process Outsourcing; or LPO as they call it.
It’s all very simple. Working people don’t seem to have time these days, but they have lots of money; especially those double income couples, IT nerds, MBA hot shots, finance wizards; just about everybody in the modern rat race. ‘Non-core Life Activities’, for which they neither have the inclination or the time – outsource them; so you can maximize your work-time to rake in the money and make a fast climb up the ladder of success.
“My daughter’s puked in her school. They want someone to pick her up and take her home. I’m busy in a shoot and just can’t leave,” a creative ad agency type says.
“Why don’t you tell your husband?” I say.
“Are you crazy or something. I’m a single mother.”
“Sorry ma’am. I didn’t know. My condolences.”
“Condolences? Who’s this? Is this LPO?”
“Yes ma’am,” I say, press the button marked ‘children’ and transfer the call, hoping I have made the right choice. Maybe I should have pressed ‘doctor’.
Nothing happens for the next few moments. I breathe a sigh of relief.
A yuppie wants his grandmother to be taken to a movie. I press the ‘movies’ button. ‘Movies’ transfers the call back, “Hey, this is for movie tickets; try ‘escort services’. He wants the old hag escorted to the movies.”
‘Escort Services’ are in high demand. These guys and girls, slogging in their offices minting money, want escort services for their kith and kin for various non-core family processes like shopping, movies, eating out, sight seeing, marriages, funerals, all types of functions; even going to art galleries, book fairs, exhibitions, zoos, museums or even a walk in the nearby garden.
A father wants someone to read bedtime stories to his small son while he works late. A busy couple wants proxy stand-in ‘parents’ at the school PTA meeting. An investment banker rings up from Singapore; he wants his mother to be taken to pray in a temple at a certain time on a specific day.
Someone wants his kids to be taken for a swim, brunch, a play and browsing books and music.
An IT project manager wants someone to motivate and pep-talk her husband, who’s been recently sacked, and is cribbing away at home demoralized. He desperately needs someone to talk to, unburden himself, but the wife is busy – she neither has the time nor the inclination to take a few days off to boost the morale of her depressed husband when there are deadlines to be met at work and so much is at stake.
The things they want outsourced range from the mundane to the bizarre; life processes that one earlier enjoyed and took pride in doing or did as one’s sacred duty are considered ‘non-core life activities’ now-a-days by these highfalutin people.
At the end of the day I feel illuminated on this novel concept of Life Process Outsourcing, and I am about to leave, when suddenly a call comes in.
“LPO?” a man asks softly.
“Yes, this is LPO. May I help you?” I say.
“I’m speaking from Frankfurt Airport. I really don’t know if I can ask this?” he says nervously.
“Please go ahead and feel free to ask anything you desire, Sir. We do everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, Sir. Anything and everything!” I say.
“I don’t know how to say this. This is the first time I’m asking. You see, I am working 24/7 on an important project for the last few months. I’m globetrotting abroad and can’t make it there. Can you please arrange for someone suitable to take my wife out to the New Year’s Eve Dance?”
I am taken aback but quickly recover, “Yes, Sir.”
“Please send someone really good, an excellent dancer, and make sure she enjoys and has a good time. She loves dancing and I just haven’t had the time.”
“Of course, Sir.”
“And I told you – I’ve been away abroad for quite some time now and I’ve got to stay out here till I complete the project.”
“I know. Work takes top priority.”
“My wife. She’s been lonely. She desperately needs some love. Do you have someone with a loving and caring nature who can give her some love? I just don’t have the time. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
I let the words sink in. This is one call I am not going to transfer. “Please give me the details, Sir,” I say softly into the mike.
As I walk towards my destination with a spring in my step, I feel truly enlightened. Till this moment, I never knew that love was a non-core life process worthy of outsourcing.
Long Live Life Process Outsourcing!
Life Process Outsourcing (LPO)
A fiction short story
by
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
by
Vikram Karve
( a fiction short story )
On the morning of New Year’s Eve, while I was loafing on Main Street, I meet an old friend of mine.
“Hi!” I say.
“Hi,” he says, “where to?”
“Aimless loitering,” I say, “And you?”
“I’m going to work.”
“Work? This early? I thought your shift starts in the evening, or late at night. You work at a call center don’t you?”
“Not now. I quit. I’m on my own now.”
“On your own? What do you do?”
“LPO.”
“LPO? What’s that?”
“Life Process Outsourcing.”
“Life Process Outsourcing? Never heard of it!”
“You’ve heard of Business Process Outsourcing haven’t you?”
“BPO? Outsourcing non-core business activities and functions.”
“Precisely. LPO is similar to BPO. There it’s Business Processes which are outsourced, here it’s Life Processes.”
“Life Processes? Outsourced?”
“Why don’t you come along with me? I’ll show you.”
Soon we are in his office. It looks like a mini call center.
A young attractive girl welcomes us. “Meet Rita, my Manager,” my friend says, and introduces us.
Rita looks distraught, and says to my friend, “ I’m not feeling well. Must be viral fever.”
“No problem. My friend here will stand in.”
“What? I don’t have a clue about all this LPO thing!” I protest.
“There’s nothing like learning on the job! Rita will show you.”
“It’s simple,” Rita says, in a hurry. “See the console. You just press the appropriate switch and route the call to the appropriate person or agency.” And with these words she disappears. It’s the shortest training I have ever had in my life.
And so I plunge into the world of Life Process Outsourcing; or LPO as they call it.
It’s all very simple. Working people don’t seem to have time these days, but they have lots of money; especially those double income couples, IT nerds, MBA hot shots, finance wizards; just about everybody in the modern rat race. ‘Non-core Life Activities’, for which they neither have the inclination or the time – outsource them; so you can maximize your work-time to rake in the money and make a fast climb up the ladder of success.
“My daughter’s puked in her school. They want someone to pick her up and take her home. I’m busy in a shoot and just can’t leave,” a creative ad agency type says.
“Why don’t you tell your husband?” I say.
“Are you crazy or something. I’m a single mother.”
“Sorry ma’am. I didn’t know. My condolences.”
“Condolences? Who’s this? Is this LPO?”
“Yes ma’am,” I say, press the button marked ‘children’ and transfer the call, hoping I have made the right choice. Maybe I should have pressed ‘doctor’.
Nothing happens for the next few moments. I breathe a sigh of relief.
A yuppie wants his grandmother to be taken to a movie. I press the ‘movies’ button. ‘Movies’ transfers the call back, “Hey, this is for movie tickets; try ‘escort services’. He wants the old hag escorted to the movies.”
‘Escort Services’ are in high demand. These guys and girls, slogging in their offices minting money, want escort services for their kith and kin for various non-core family processes like shopping, movies, eating out, sight seeing, marriages, funerals, all types of functions; even going to art galleries, book fairs, exhibitions, zoos, museums or even a walk in the nearby garden.
A father wants someone to read bedtime stories to his small son while he works late. A busy couple wants proxy stand-in ‘parents’ at the school PTA meeting. An investment banker rings up from Singapore; he wants his mother to be taken to pray in a temple at a certain time on a specific day.
Someone wants his kids to be taken for a swim, brunch, a play and browsing books and music.
An IT project manager wants someone to motivate and pep-talk her husband, who’s been recently sacked, and is cribbing away at home demoralized. He desperately needs someone to talk to, unburden himself, but the wife is busy – she neither has the time nor the inclination to take a few days off to boost the morale of her depressed husband when there are deadlines to be met at work and so much is at stake.
The things they want outsourced range from the mundane to the bizarre; life processes that one earlier enjoyed and took pride in doing or did as one’s sacred duty are considered ‘non-core life activities’ now-a-days by these highfalutin people.
At the end of the day I feel illuminated on this novel concept of Life Process Outsourcing, and I am about to leave, when suddenly a call comes in.
“LPO?” a man asks softly.
“Yes, this is LPO. May I help you?” I say.
“I’m speaking from Frankfurt Airport. I really don’t know if I can ask this?” he says nervously.
“Please go ahead and feel free to ask anything you desire, Sir. We do everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, Sir. Anything and everything!” I say.
“I don’t know how to say this. This is the first time I’m asking. You see, I am working 24/7 on an important project for the last few months. I’m globetrotting abroad and can’t make it there. Can you please arrange for someone suitable to take my wife out to the New Year’s Eve Dance?”
I am taken aback but quickly recover, “Yes, Sir.”
“Please send someone really good, an excellent dancer, and make sure she enjoys and has a good time. She loves dancing and I just haven’t had the time.”
“Of course, Sir.”
“And I told you – I’ve been away abroad for quite some time now and I’ve got to stay out here till I complete the project.”
“I know. Work takes top priority.”
“My wife. She’s been lonely. She desperately needs some love. Do you have someone with a loving and caring nature who can give her some love? I just don’t have the time. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
I let the words sink in. This is one call I am not going to transfer. “Please give me the details, Sir,” I say softly into the mike.
As I walk towards my destination with a spring in my step, I feel truly enlightened. Till this moment, I never knew that love was a non-core life process worthy of outsourcing.
Long Live Life Process Outsourcing!
Life Process Outsourcing (LPO)
A fiction short story
by
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
Monday, April 03, 2006
Confluence
CONFLUENCE
by
VIKRAM KARVE
Winter. Early morning. Chill in the air. I stand alone on the metre gauge side of the lonely island platform of Mettupalaiyam Railway Station and stare at the peaks of the Blue Mountains (the Nilgiris) silhouetted in a veil of mist in the distance.
Nothing much has changed here since the last time I came here on my way to Ooty. Almost 30 years ago. The place, the things, the people – everything looks the same. As if frozen in time.
But for me there is a world of difference. Then I was a young bride, full of inchoate zest, in the company of my handsome husband, eagerly looking forward to the romantic journey on the mountain train, on my way to our honeymoon at Ooty.
And now! The same place which then felt so exciting now feels so gloomy. Strange. But true. What’s outside just doesn’t matter; what’s inside does. I try not to reminisce. Remembering good times when I am in misery causes me unimaginable agony.
I look at my watch. 7.30 A.M. The small blue toy train pushed by its hissing steam engine comes on the platform. Dot on time. As it was then. The same December morning. The same chill in the air. Then I had the warmth of my husband’s arm around me. Now I feel the bitter cold penetrating within me.
I drag my feet across the platform towards the mountain train. Scared, anxious, fear in my stomach, I experience a strange uneasiness, a sense of foreboding, a feeling of ominous helplessness - wondering what my new life would have in store for me.
I sit alone in the First Class compartment right in front of the train. Waiting for the train to start. And take me to the point to no return. Wishing that all this is just a dream. But knowing it is not.
And suddenly, Avinash enters. We stare at each other in disbelief. Time stands still. Till Avinash speaks, “Roopa! What are you doing here?”
I do not answer. Because I cannot. For I am swept by a wave of melancholic despair. My vocal cords numbed by emotional pain. And as I look helplessly at Avinash, I realize that there is no greater pain than to remember happier times when in distress.
“You look good when you get emotional,” Avinash says sitting opposite me.
In the vulnerable emotional state that I am in, I know that I will have a breakdown if I continue sitting with Avinash. I want to get out, run away; but suddenly, the train moves. I am trapped. So I decide to put on a brave front, and say to Avinash, “Coming from Chennai?”
“Bangalore,” he says, “ I’d gone for some work there.”
“You stay here? In Ooty?” I ask with a tremor of trepidation for I do not want to run into Avinash again and again; and let him know that I had made a big mistake by not marrying him - that I had made the wrong choice by dumping him, the man I loved, in search of a ‘better’ life.
“I stay near Kotagiri,” Avinash says.
“Kotagiri?” I ask relieved.
“Yes, I own a tea-estate there.”
“A tea estate?”
“Yes. I am a planter.”
Now I really regret my blunder 30 years ago. Indeed I had made the wrong choice.
“Your family – wife, children?” I probe, curious.
“I didn’t marry,” he says curtly. “There’s no family; only me. All by myself.”
“Oh, Avinash. You should have got married. Why didn’t you?”
“Strange you should be asking me that!” he says.
“Oh my God! Because of me?”
Avinash changes the subject, “I’ll be getting off at Coonoor. My jeep will pick me up.” He pauses, then says, “And you, Roopa? Going to Ooty? At the height of winter! To freeze there!”
“No,” I say, “ I’m going to Ketti.”
“Ketti ?” he asks with derisive surprise.
“Yes. What’s wrong with going to Ketti ?” I protest.
“There are only two places you can go to in Ketti. The School and the old-age home. And the school is closed in December,” Avinash says nonchalantly, looking out of the window.
I say nothing. I can’t. I suffer his words in silence.
“Unless of course you own a bungalow there!” he says turning towards me and mocking me once again.
The cat is out of the bag. I cannot describe the sense of humiliation I feel sitting there with Avinash. The tables seem to have turned. Or have they?
There are only the two of us in the tiny compartment. As the train begins to climb up the hills it began to get windy and Avinash closes the windows. The smallness of the compartment forces us into a strange sort of intimacy. I remember the lovely moments with Avinash. A woman’s first love always has an enduring place in her heart.
“I am sorry if I hurt you,” Avinash says, “but the bitterness just came out.”
We talk. Avinash is easy to talk to and I am astonished how effortlessly my words come tumbling out.
I tell him everything. The story of my life. How I had struggled, sacrificed, taken every care. But still, everything had gone wrong. Widowed at 28. Abandoned by my only son at 52. Banished to an old-age home. So that ‘they’ could sell off our house and emigrate to Australia. ‘They’ - my son and that scheming wife of his.
“I have lost everything,” I cry, unable to control my self. “Avinash, I have lost everything.”
“No, Roopa,” Avinash says. “You haven’t lost everything. You have got me! I’ve got you. We’ve got each other.”
Avinash takes me in his comforting arms and I experience the same feeling, the same zest, I felt thirty years ago, on my first romantic journey, on this same mountain toy train, on my way to my first honeymoon.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
by
VIKRAM KARVE
Winter. Early morning. Chill in the air. I stand alone on the metre gauge side of the lonely island platform of Mettupalaiyam Railway Station and stare at the peaks of the Blue Mountains (the Nilgiris) silhouetted in a veil of mist in the distance.
Nothing much has changed here since the last time I came here on my way to Ooty. Almost 30 years ago. The place, the things, the people – everything looks the same. As if frozen in time.
But for me there is a world of difference. Then I was a young bride, full of inchoate zest, in the company of my handsome husband, eagerly looking forward to the romantic journey on the mountain train, on my way to our honeymoon at Ooty.
And now! The same place which then felt so exciting now feels so gloomy. Strange. But true. What’s outside just doesn’t matter; what’s inside does. I try not to reminisce. Remembering good times when I am in misery causes me unimaginable agony.
I look at my watch. 7.30 A.M. The small blue toy train pushed by its hissing steam engine comes on the platform. Dot on time. As it was then. The same December morning. The same chill in the air. Then I had the warmth of my husband’s arm around me. Now I feel the bitter cold penetrating within me.
I drag my feet across the platform towards the mountain train. Scared, anxious, fear in my stomach, I experience a strange uneasiness, a sense of foreboding, a feeling of ominous helplessness - wondering what my new life would have in store for me.
I sit alone in the First Class compartment right in front of the train. Waiting for the train to start. And take me to the point to no return. Wishing that all this is just a dream. But knowing it is not.
And suddenly, Avinash enters. We stare at each other in disbelief. Time stands still. Till Avinash speaks, “Roopa! What are you doing here?”
I do not answer. Because I cannot. For I am swept by a wave of melancholic despair. My vocal cords numbed by emotional pain. And as I look helplessly at Avinash, I realize that there is no greater pain than to remember happier times when in distress.
“You look good when you get emotional,” Avinash says sitting opposite me.
In the vulnerable emotional state that I am in, I know that I will have a breakdown if I continue sitting with Avinash. I want to get out, run away; but suddenly, the train moves. I am trapped. So I decide to put on a brave front, and say to Avinash, “Coming from Chennai?”
“Bangalore,” he says, “ I’d gone for some work there.”
“You stay here? In Ooty?” I ask with a tremor of trepidation for I do not want to run into Avinash again and again; and let him know that I had made a big mistake by not marrying him - that I had made the wrong choice by dumping him, the man I loved, in search of a ‘better’ life.
“I stay near Kotagiri,” Avinash says.
“Kotagiri?” I ask relieved.
“Yes, I own a tea-estate there.”
“A tea estate?”
“Yes. I am a planter.”
Now I really regret my blunder 30 years ago. Indeed I had made the wrong choice.
“Your family – wife, children?” I probe, curious.
“I didn’t marry,” he says curtly. “There’s no family; only me. All by myself.”
“Oh, Avinash. You should have got married. Why didn’t you?”
“Strange you should be asking me that!” he says.
“Oh my God! Because of me?”
Avinash changes the subject, “I’ll be getting off at Coonoor. My jeep will pick me up.” He pauses, then says, “And you, Roopa? Going to Ooty? At the height of winter! To freeze there!”
“No,” I say, “ I’m going to Ketti.”
“Ketti ?” he asks with derisive surprise.
“Yes. What’s wrong with going to Ketti ?” I protest.
“There are only two places you can go to in Ketti. The School and the old-age home. And the school is closed in December,” Avinash says nonchalantly, looking out of the window.
I say nothing. I can’t. I suffer his words in silence.
“Unless of course you own a bungalow there!” he says turning towards me and mocking me once again.
The cat is out of the bag. I cannot describe the sense of humiliation I feel sitting there with Avinash. The tables seem to have turned. Or have they?
There are only the two of us in the tiny compartment. As the train begins to climb up the hills it began to get windy and Avinash closes the windows. The smallness of the compartment forces us into a strange sort of intimacy. I remember the lovely moments with Avinash. A woman’s first love always has an enduring place in her heart.
“I am sorry if I hurt you,” Avinash says, “but the bitterness just came out.”
We talk. Avinash is easy to talk to and I am astonished how effortlessly my words come tumbling out.
I tell him everything. The story of my life. How I had struggled, sacrificed, taken every care. But still, everything had gone wrong. Widowed at 28. Abandoned by my only son at 52. Banished to an old-age home. So that ‘they’ could sell off our house and emigrate to Australia. ‘They’ - my son and that scheming wife of his.
“I have lost everything,” I cry, unable to control my self. “Avinash, I have lost everything.”
“No, Roopa,” Avinash says. “You haven’t lost everything. You have got me! I’ve got you. We’ve got each other.”
Avinash takes me in his comforting arms and I experience the same feeling, the same zest, I felt thirty years ago, on my first romantic journey, on this same mountain toy train, on my way to my first honeymoon.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Looking Back by Dr. DK Karve - Book Review of the autobiography of Maharshi Karve
Book Review by Vikram Waman Karve
The Book : Looking Back
The Author : Dhondo Keshav Karve
First Published in 1936
Looking Back by Dhondo Keshav Karve.
(The Autobiography of Maharshi Karve with a preface by Frederick J. Gould)
Dear Reader, you must be wondering why I am reviewing an autobiography written in 1936. Well, I stay on Maharshi Karve Road in Mumbai. I share the same surname as the author. Also, I happen to be the great grandson of Maharshi Karve. But, beyond that, compared to him I am a nobody – not even a pygmy. He saw his goal, persisted ceaselessly throughout his life with missionary zeal and transformed the destiny of the Indian Woman. The first university for women in India - The SNDT University and educational institutions for women covering the entire spectrum ranging from pre-primary schools to post-graduate, engineering, vocational and professional colleges bear eloquent testimony to his indomitable spirit, untiring perseverance and determined efforts.
In his preface, Frederick J Gould writes that “the narrative is a parable of his career” – a most apt description of the autobiography. The author tells his life-story in a simple straightforward manner, with remarkable candour and humility; resulting in a narrative which is friendly, interesting and readable. Autobiographies are sometimes voluminous tomes but this a small book, 200 pages, and a very easy comfortable enjoyable read that makes it almost unputdownable. Dr. DK Karve writes a crisp, flowing narrative of his life interspersed with his views and anecdotes in simple, straightforward style which facilitates the reader to visualize through the author’s eyes the places, period, people and events pertaining to his life and times and the trials and tribulations he faced and struggled to conquer.
Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve was born on 18th of April 1958. In the first few chapters he writes about Murud, his native place in Konkan, Maharashtra, his ancestry and his early life– the description is so vivid that you can clearly “see” through the author’s eye. His struggle to appear in the public service examination ( walking 110 miles in torrential rain and difficult terrain to Satara), and the shattering disappointment at not being allowed to appear because “he looked too young”, make poignant reading.
“Many undreamt of things have happened in my life and given a different turn to my career” he writes, and then goes on to describe his high school and, later, college education at The Wilson College Bombay (Mumbai) narrating various incidents that convinced him of the role of destiny and serendipity in shaping his life and career as a teacher and then Professor of Mathematics.
He married at the age of fourteen but began his marital life at the age of twenty! This was the custom of those days. Let’s read the author’s own words on his domestic life: “ … I was married at the age of fourteen and my wife was then eight. Her family lived very near to ours and we knew each other very well and had often played together. However after marriage we had to forget our old relation as playmates and to behave as strangers, often looking toward each other but never standing together to exchange words…. We had to communicate with each other through my sister…… My marital life began under the parental roof at Murud when I was twenty…” Their domestic bliss was short lived as his wife died after a few years leaving behind a son… “Thus ended the first part of my domestic life”… he concludes in crisp style.
An incident highlighting the plight of a widow left an indelible impression on him and germinated in him the idea of widow remarriage. He married Godubai, who was widowed when she was only eight years old, was a sister of his friend Mr. Joshi, and now twenty three was studying at Pandita Ramabai’s Sharada Sadan as its first widow student . Let’s read in the author’s own words how he asked for her hand in marriage to her father – “ I told him…..I had made up my mind to marry a widow. He sat silent for a minute and then hinted that there was no need to go in search of such a bride”.
He describes in detail the ostracism he faced from some orthodox quarters and systematically enunciates his life work - his organization of the Widow Marriage Association, Hindu Widows Home, Mahila Vidyalaya, Nishkama Karma Math, and other institutions, culminating in the birth of the first Indian Women’s University ( SNDT University). The trials and tribulations he faced in his life-work of emancipation of education of women (widows in particular) and how he overcame them by his persistent steadfast endeavours and indomitable spirit makes illuminating reading and underlines the fact that Dr. DK Karve was no arm-chair social reformer but a person devoted to achieve his dreams on the ground in reality. These chapters form the meat of the book and make compelling reading. ( His dedication and meticulousness is evident in the appendices where he has given datewise details of his engagements and subscriptions down to the paisa for his educational institutions from various places he visited around the world to propagate their cause).
He then describes his world tour, at 71, to meet eminent educationists to propagate the cause of the Women’s University, his later domestic life and ends with a few of his views and ideas for posterity. At the end he writes: “ Here ends the story of my life. I hope this simple story will serve some useful purpose”.
He wrote this in 1936. He lived till the 9th of November 1962, achieving so much more on the way, was conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters ( D.Litt.) by the Banaras Hindu University in 1942 followed by Poona in 1951, SNDT in 1955, and Bombay(LL.D.) in 1957. Maharshi Karve received the Padma Vibhushan in 1955 and the nation’s highest honour the “Bharat Ratna” in 1958, a fitting tribute at the age of 100.
Epilogue
I was born in 1956, and have fleeting memories of Maharshi Karve, during our visits to Hingne in 1961-62, as a small boy of 5 or 6 can. My mother tells me that I featured in a films division documentary on him during his centenary celebrations in 1958 ( I must have been barely two maybe one and a half years old ) and there is a photograph of him and his great grand children where I feature. It is from people and mainly from books that I learn of his pioneering work in transforming the destiny of the Indian Woman and I thought I should share this.
I have written this book review with the hope that some of us, men and women, particularly students of SNDT, Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Pune, SOFT, Karve Institute of Social Sciences and other educational institutions related to Maharshi Karve, read about his stellar pioneering work and draw inspiration from his autobiography. I trust that SNDT and Cummins College of Engineering have included a module on the life and work of Maharshi Karve in their course curriculum for the benefit of their students to facilitate them to learn and imbibe some of his sterling values and consolidate his work.
Two other good books pertaining to the life of Maharshi Karve which I have read are : Maharshi Karve by Ganesh L. Chandavarkar, Popular Prakashan (1958) and Maharshi Karve – His 105 years, Hingne Stree Shikshan Samstha (1963).
VIKRAM WAMAN KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vwkarve@sify.com
The Book : Looking Back
The Author : Dhondo Keshav Karve
First Published in 1936
Looking Back by Dhondo Keshav Karve.
(The Autobiography of Maharshi Karve with a preface by Frederick J. Gould)
Dear Reader, you must be wondering why I am reviewing an autobiography written in 1936. Well, I stay on Maharshi Karve Road in Mumbai. I share the same surname as the author. Also, I happen to be the great grandson of Maharshi Karve. But, beyond that, compared to him I am a nobody – not even a pygmy. He saw his goal, persisted ceaselessly throughout his life with missionary zeal and transformed the destiny of the Indian Woman. The first university for women in India - The SNDT University and educational institutions for women covering the entire spectrum ranging from pre-primary schools to post-graduate, engineering, vocational and professional colleges bear eloquent testimony to his indomitable spirit, untiring perseverance and determined efforts.
In his preface, Frederick J Gould writes that “the narrative is a parable of his career” – a most apt description of the autobiography. The author tells his life-story in a simple straightforward manner, with remarkable candour and humility; resulting in a narrative which is friendly, interesting and readable. Autobiographies are sometimes voluminous tomes but this a small book, 200 pages, and a very easy comfortable enjoyable read that makes it almost unputdownable. Dr. DK Karve writes a crisp, flowing narrative of his life interspersed with his views and anecdotes in simple, straightforward style which facilitates the reader to visualize through the author’s eyes the places, period, people and events pertaining to his life and times and the trials and tribulations he faced and struggled to conquer.
Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve was born on 18th of April 1958. In the first few chapters he writes about Murud, his native place in Konkan, Maharashtra, his ancestry and his early life– the description is so vivid that you can clearly “see” through the author’s eye. His struggle to appear in the public service examination ( walking 110 miles in torrential rain and difficult terrain to Satara), and the shattering disappointment at not being allowed to appear because “he looked too young”, make poignant reading.
“Many undreamt of things have happened in my life and given a different turn to my career” he writes, and then goes on to describe his high school and, later, college education at The Wilson College Bombay (Mumbai) narrating various incidents that convinced him of the role of destiny and serendipity in shaping his life and career as a teacher and then Professor of Mathematics.
He married at the age of fourteen but began his marital life at the age of twenty! This was the custom of those days. Let’s read the author’s own words on his domestic life: “ … I was married at the age of fourteen and my wife was then eight. Her family lived very near to ours and we knew each other very well and had often played together. However after marriage we had to forget our old relation as playmates and to behave as strangers, often looking toward each other but never standing together to exchange words…. We had to communicate with each other through my sister…… My marital life began under the parental roof at Murud when I was twenty…” Their domestic bliss was short lived as his wife died after a few years leaving behind a son… “Thus ended the first part of my domestic life”… he concludes in crisp style.
An incident highlighting the plight of a widow left an indelible impression on him and germinated in him the idea of widow remarriage. He married Godubai, who was widowed when she was only eight years old, was a sister of his friend Mr. Joshi, and now twenty three was studying at Pandita Ramabai’s Sharada Sadan as its first widow student . Let’s read in the author’s own words how he asked for her hand in marriage to her father – “ I told him…..I had made up my mind to marry a widow. He sat silent for a minute and then hinted that there was no need to go in search of such a bride”.
He describes in detail the ostracism he faced from some orthodox quarters and systematically enunciates his life work - his organization of the Widow Marriage Association, Hindu Widows Home, Mahila Vidyalaya, Nishkama Karma Math, and other institutions, culminating in the birth of the first Indian Women’s University ( SNDT University). The trials and tribulations he faced in his life-work of emancipation of education of women (widows in particular) and how he overcame them by his persistent steadfast endeavours and indomitable spirit makes illuminating reading and underlines the fact that Dr. DK Karve was no arm-chair social reformer but a person devoted to achieve his dreams on the ground in reality. These chapters form the meat of the book and make compelling reading. ( His dedication and meticulousness is evident in the appendices where he has given datewise details of his engagements and subscriptions down to the paisa for his educational institutions from various places he visited around the world to propagate their cause).
He then describes his world tour, at 71, to meet eminent educationists to propagate the cause of the Women’s University, his later domestic life and ends with a few of his views and ideas for posterity. At the end he writes: “ Here ends the story of my life. I hope this simple story will serve some useful purpose”.
He wrote this in 1936. He lived till the 9th of November 1962, achieving so much more on the way, was conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters ( D.Litt.) by the Banaras Hindu University in 1942 followed by Poona in 1951, SNDT in 1955, and Bombay(LL.D.) in 1957. Maharshi Karve received the Padma Vibhushan in 1955 and the nation’s highest honour the “Bharat Ratna” in 1958, a fitting tribute at the age of 100.
Epilogue
I was born in 1956, and have fleeting memories of Maharshi Karve, during our visits to Hingne in 1961-62, as a small boy of 5 or 6 can. My mother tells me that I featured in a films division documentary on him during his centenary celebrations in 1958 ( I must have been barely two maybe one and a half years old ) and there is a photograph of him and his great grand children where I feature. It is from people and mainly from books that I learn of his pioneering work in transforming the destiny of the Indian Woman and I thought I should share this.
I have written this book review with the hope that some of us, men and women, particularly students of SNDT, Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Pune, SOFT, Karve Institute of Social Sciences and other educational institutions related to Maharshi Karve, read about his stellar pioneering work and draw inspiration from his autobiography. I trust that SNDT and Cummins College of Engineering have included a module on the life and work of Maharshi Karve in their course curriculum for the benefit of their students to facilitate them to learn and imbibe some of his sterling values and consolidate his work.
Two other good books pertaining to the life of Maharshi Karve which I have read are : Maharshi Karve by Ganesh L. Chandavarkar, Popular Prakashan (1958) and Maharshi Karve – His 105 years, Hingne Stree Shikshan Samstha (1963).
VIKRAM WAMAN KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vwkarve@sify.com
Monday, February 13, 2006
A Short Story by Vikram Karve
THE WOMAN ON THE TRAIN
by
VIKRAM KARVE
The moment I see Muthu, the office-boy, standing at the door of the class room I feel a familiar fear. I close my eyes and try to concentrate on Ms Bhalla who is reading aloud with dramatic effect Ruskin Bond’s story ‘The Woman on Platform 8’. It’s a moving story about a brief encounter between a woman and a motherless boy.
I love short stories, especially Ruskin Bond, and Ms Bhalla is my favorite teacher. But it’s no use. I can’t hear a word she is saying.
I open my eyes. Ms Bhalla is in a world of her own, reading away, book in her left hand and making gestures with her right. She hasn’t noticed Muthu, or the fact that almost everyone in the class are looking at him and not at her. So thoroughly is she absorbed in herself and so totally is she oblivious of her surroundings that no one dare disturb her.
“………..I watched her until she was lost in the milling crowd,” Ms Bhalla ends the story with a flourish and looks at us triumphantly only to discover that most of her students are looking towards the door. Her expression starts changing.
Before she gets angry someone says, “It’s Muthu, ma’am.”
Ms Bhalla glares at poor Muthu who sheepishly walks in and gives her the chit he is holding in his hand.
I look down into my notebook trying to keep my mind blank, but even without seeing I know that Ms Bhalla is looking at me. “Shanta, go to the principal’s office,” she says, “and take your bag with you.”
Take my bag with me? I feel scared, anxious. I hope it’s not too serious.
“Must be a big binge this time ,” I hear Rita’s voice behind me. Tears well up in my eyes. Rita is from such a happy family. Why is she so mean and nasty?
I’m about to break down when I feel Lata’s reassuring hand on my wrist, “Let’s go, Shanta. I’ll bring your bag.”
We walk through the silent corridors. Our school is located in one of those ancient castle type buildings - cold, dark and gloomy.
“I shouldn’t have left him alone last night,” I say.
“I feel so sad for uncle,” Lata says.
“Whenever I’m there he’s okay. Controls himself. He loves me so much. I’m the only one he’s got - after mummy died.”
“He was improving so much,” Lata says. “Looking so good last weekend.”
Lata is my true friend ….. the only person who I can open my heart to. The others - they watch from a distance. With pity. And a few like Rita with an evil delight at my misfortune.
“Something mush have happened yesterday,” I say. “I wish I had gone home last night. It’s in the evenings that he needs me the most.”
“Shanta, you want me to come,” Lata asks.
“Yes,” I say. I really need some moral support. Facing the world all alone. I can’t bear it any longer.
Ms David, our class-teacher, is standing outside the principal’s office. I follow her in.
I nervously enter the principal’s office. The principal, Mrs Nathan, is talking to a lady sitting opposite her. Noticing me she says, “Ah, Shanta. You daddy’s not well again. He’s admitted in the clinic again. You take the ten o’clock shuttle. And ring me up if you want anything.”
“Can I go with her?” Lata asks.
“You go back to class,” the principal says sternly, “you’ve got a maths test at 10 o’clock haven’t you?”
“Please Miss…. “ Lata pleads with Ms David, our class teacher, but Ms David says,” Lata you are in the ninth standard now. Be serious about your studies. And today afternoon is the basketball final. How can you be absent?”
I feel pain in the interiors of my mind. No one ever tells me to be serious about studies; or even sports.
Lata gives me my school-bag and leaves quickly.
Mrs Nathan takes off her glasses and looks at me. There is compassion in her eyes. “Be brave, Shanta,” she says. “This is Ms Pushpa - an ex-student of our school.”
“Good morning, ma’am,” I say.
“Hello, Shanta.” Ms Pushpa says. “I’m also taking the train to Coonoor. We’ll travel together.”
As we leave the principal’s office I can feel the piercing looks of pity burning into me. The teachers, the staff, even the gardener. Everyone knows. And they know that I know that they know. Morose faces creased with lines of compassion. The atmosphere of pity. The deafening silence. It’s terrible. I just want to get away from the place. These people - they just don’t understand that I want empathy; not sympathy.
I walk with Ms Pushpa taking the short-cut to Lovedale railway station. It’s cold, damp and the smell of eucalyptus fills my nostrils. A typical winter morning in the Nilgiris.
I look at Ms Pushpa. She looks so chic. Blue jeans, bright red pullover, fair creamy flawless complexion, jet-black hair neatly tied in a bun, dark Ray-Ban sunglasses of the latest style. A good-looking woman with smart feminine features. Elegant. Fashionable. Well groomed.
We walk in silence. I wait for her to start the conversation. I don’t know how much she knows.
“You’re in Champak house, aren’t you?” she asks looking at the crest on my blazer.
Polite conversation. Asking a question to which you already know the answer.
“Yes ma’am,” I answer.
“I too was in Champak house,” she says.
“When did you pass out, ma’am ?” I ask.
“1987,” she says.
I do a quick mental calculation. She must be in her mid-thirties. 35, maybe. She certainly looks young for her age. And very beautiful.
We cross the tracks and reach the solitary platform of Lovedale railway station.
“Let me buy your ticket. You’re going to Coonoor aren’t you?” she asks.
“Thank you ma’am. I’ve got a season ticket,” I say.
“Season ticket ?” she asked surprised.
“I’m a day scholar, ma’am. I travel every day from Coonoor,” I say.
“Oh! In our time it was strictly a boarding school,” she says.
“Even now ma’am,” I say. “I’ve got special permission. My father doesn’t keep well. I have to look after him.”
“Oh, yes,” she says, and walks towards the deserted booking window.
Lovedale is the most picturesque railway station on the Nilgiri mountain railway but today it looks gloomy, desolate. One has to be happy inside for things to look beautiful outside.
She returns with her ticket and we sit on the solitary bench.
“Where do you stay ma’am ?” I ask.
“Bangalore,” she says. “You’ve been there?”
“Yes”
“Often?”
“Only once. Last month. For my father’s treatment,” I say.”
She asks the question I’m waiting for, “Shanta. Tell me. Your father. What’s wrong with him ? What’s he suffering from ?”
I’ve never really understood why people ask me this question to which I suspect they already know the answer. Each probably has their own reason. Curiosity, lip-sympathy, genuine concern, sadistic pleasure. At first I’d feel embarrassed, try to cover up, mask, give all sorts of explanations. But now I have learnt that it is best to be blunt and straightforward.
“He’s an alcoholic,” I say. Most people shut up after this. Or change the topic of conversation. But Ms Pushpa pursues, “It must be terrible living with him. He must be getting violent.”
“No,” I say. “With me papa is very gentle. He loves me a lot.”
Tears well up in my eyes and my nose feels heavy. I take out my handkerchief. I feel her comforting arm around my shoulder and know her concern is genuine.
Suddenly the station bell rings, I hear the whistle and the blue mountain train streams into the platform. They still use steam engines here on the Nilgiri mountain railway. The train is almost empty. It’s off-season, there are no tourists, and in any case this train is never crowded as it returns to Coonoor after transporting all the office-goers to Ooty.
We sit opposite each other in an empty compartment. She still hasn’t taken off her dark sunglasses even though it is overcast and it begins to drizzle.
She looks at her watch. I look at mine. 10 AM. Half-an-hour’s journey to Coonoor.
“You came today morning, ma’am ?” I ask.
“No. Last evening. I stayed with Monica David. Your class teacher. We were classmates.”
What a difference. Miss David is so schoolmarmish. And Ms Pushpa so mod and chic. But I better be careful what I say. After all, classmates are classmates.
The train begins its journey and soon Ketti valley comes into view.
“There used to be orchards down there. Now there are buildings,” she says.
“You’ve come after a long time?” I ask.
“Yes. Almost nineteen years. The first time since passing out,” she says.
“For some work? Children’s admission?”
“No, No,” she bursts out laughing, “I’m single. Happily unmarried.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, contrite.
“Come on, Shanta. It’s Okay,” she says. “I’ve come for some work in Coonoor. Just visited the school for old times’ sake.”
“You must come during Founder’s day. You’ll meet everyone,” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “All these years I was abroad. America, Singapore, Manila, Europe. Now that I’m in Bangalore, I’ll definitely make it.”
“You work?” I ask.
“Yes. In an MNC.”
Must be an MBA from a top business school. Like IIM. Or maybe even Harvard. Wish I could be like her. Independent. Smart. Elegant. Successful. I certainly have the talent. But what about papa? Who will look after him?
I try not to think of the future. It all looks so bleak, uncertain. Better not think of it. I don’t even know what awaits me at the clinic. Just a few minutes more. It’s unbearable - the tension. Why do I have to go through all this?
She’s looking out of the window. It’s grey and cold. Dark clouds. But she still wears her dark sunglasses. Hasn’t taken them off even once.
Suddenly we enter the Ketti tunnel. It’s pitch dark. The smell of steam and smoke. It’s warm. Comforting. I close my eyes.
The train whistles. Slows down. I open my eyes. She’s still wearing dark glasses. Maybe she too has something to hide. And me. What I want to hide, everyone knows; but makes a pretence of not knowing. At least in my presence.
The train stops at Ketti. On the platform there is a group of girls, my age. They are in a jovial mood; giggling, eyes dancing, faces beaming, so carefree and happy. Their happiness hurts me deep down in my heart.
The girls don’t get in. Dressed in track-suits, and Ketti valley school blazers, they are probably waiting for the up train to Ooty which crosses here. Must be going for the basketball match.
A girl with a familiar face walks up to me with her friend.
“Not playing?” she asks.
“No,” I say.
“I wish we knew. We wouldn’t have gone so early to practice,” she says.
“Who’s captaining?” her friend asks.
“Lata maybe. I don’t know,” I say.
“Where are you going?”
“Coonoor.”
“Coonoor?”
“My father’s in hospital. He’s not well.”
“Oh! Hope he gets well soon. Okay bye.”
The girls walk away whispering to each other. And I hear the hushed voice of the one I’ve met for the first time, “Poor thing.”
“Poor thing.” The words pierce through my heart. “Poor thing.” The words echo in the interiors of my mind. “Poor thing!” “Poor thing!” “Poor thing!” The resonance is deafening. I feel I’m going mad. I feel Ms Pushpa’s hand on mine. A slight pressure. Comforting.
The up train comes, the girls get in, and train leaves towards Ooty.
Our engine’s whistle shrieks, our train starts moving. Outside it starts to rain. We close the windows. The smallness of the compartment forces us into a strange intimacy.
“I’ll come with you to the hospital,” Ms Pushpa says.
I know she means well, but nowadays I hate to depend on the kindness of strangers; so I reply, “Thank you ma’am, but I’ll manage. I’m used to it.”
“Is he often like this?” she asks.
Why is she asking me all this? It seems genuine compassion. Or maybe she has her own troubles. And talking to me makes her own troubles go away.
I decide to give her every thing in one go. “When I am there he’s okay. Controls himself. He loves me more than his drink. Last night I stayed at the hostel to study for a test. And he must have felt lonely and hit the bottle. I shouldn’t have left him alone. After mummy’s gone I am the only one he’s got, and he’s the only one I’ve got.” I pause and I say, “He was improving so much. Something must have happened last evening. He must have got upset - really upset.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says. Her tone is apologetic as if she were responsible in some way.
“Why should you feel sorry, ma’am. It’s my fate. I’ve to just find out what’s upset him. And see it doesn’t happen again. Maybe somebody visited him, passed some hurting remark. He’s very sensitive.”
Her expression changes slightly. She winces. “Does he tell you everything?” she asks.
“Of course he tells me everything,” I say, “There are no secrets between us. I’m his best friend.”
“I wish I could help you in some way,” she says.
I don’t say anything. I close my eyes. What a fool I have been, I’ve told her everything. And I know nothing about her. Not even the color of her eyes - she hasn’t even once taken off her dark sunglasses, like someone who’s blind. How cleverly she’s manipulated the conversation. Maybe people who are happy and successful feel good listening to other people’s sorrows.
I feel stifled. I open my eyes and the window. A shrill whistle and we pass through a gorge. Noise, steam, smoke, and suddenly it becomes sunny and the train begins to slow down.
“We’ve reached,” I say. We get down on the platform at Coonoor.
“I’ll come with you,” she says.
“Thanks. But it’s okay. I’ll go by myself.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
Ms Pushpa takes off her dark sunglasses and looks at me. I see her eyes. For the first time. A shiver passes through me as I look into her eyes. They are greenish-grey. She’s got cat-eyes. Exactly like mine.
Suddenly she takes me in her arms and hugs me in a tight embrace.
Stunned, I struggle, feeling acutely uncomfortable.
She releases me and I just stand there feeling numb, confused.
The whistle shrieks. I come to my senses. Look up at her. Her eyes are red and tears flow down her cheeks.
Suddenly she puts on her sunglasses, turns and walks away.
As I walk towards the hospital I think about my brief encounter with Ms Pushpa, her rather strange behaviour. It’s certainly not one of those ‘hail fellow – well met’ type of time-pass conversations between co-passengers. But suddenly she’s gone and I don’t know anything about her. She hasn’t even given me her card, address, phone, nothing. It all happened so fast.
The Clinic. Well laid-out. Neat. Spick and span. Anesthetic smell. An air of discipline. I walk through the corridor. I know where to go.
“Yes?” a voice says from behind.
I turn around. It’s a matron. I’ve never seen her before. Her eyes are hard, pitiless.
I tell her who I am. Her expression changes. Lines of compassion begin to crease her face. But still, her face has something terrible written on it.
I smile. I have learnt to smile even when I feel like weeping.
I enter the room. Papa is lying on the solitary bed. He looks okay. His eyes are closed.
“Papa,” I say softly.
He opens his eyes. “Shanta! Come to me,” he says. I rush to his bed. He hugs me tightly, “Don’t go Shanta. Don’t leave me and go away,” he cries.
“Don’t cry papa. I’ll always be with you. I’ll never leave you alone again,” I say, tears rolling down my checks.
We both cry copiously. Time stands still. I sense the presence of people in the room. Apart from the matron, there is the comforting face of Dr. Ghosh and a young doctor in white coat, stethoscope around his neck.
“Can I take him?” I ask.
“Of course,” Dr. Ghosh says.” He’s okay now.”
“But sir,” the young doctor protests and says, “He’s hallucinating….”
“It’s okay,” Dr. Ghosh interrupts giving him a sharp look. “Shanta knows how to look after him; like a mother. Isn’t it Shanta?”
“Yes,” I say.
Papa gives sheepish look. That’s what I like about Dr. Ghosh. The way he gets his message across. There is no need for him to reprimand papa. Especially in front of me. My papa’s own remorse is his own worst reprimand.
We talk in silence. I don’t ask him any thing. He’ll tell me when he wants to.
“You’re hungry?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. It’s almost noon.
Soon we sit at the Garden Restaurant overlooking Sim’s Park. He takes his hands out of the overcoat pockets and picks up the menu card. His hands tremble. DT. Delirium Tremens. Withdrawal symptoms. Must have had a prolonged bout of drinking last night. I know what to do. Just in case. I don’t want him to turn cold turkey.
“Papa, you order,” I say and pick up my school bag and briskly walk across the road to the wine shop. On seeing me the owner puts a small bottle of brandy in a brown paper bag and gives it to me. I put in my school bag. No words are exchanged. No permit is required. It doesn’t matter that I’m a 14 year old schoolgirl. He knows. Everyone knows. Pity. Compassion.
But I know that unseen eyes see, and tongues I cannot hear will wag.
The silence. It’s grotesque. Deafening. Unbearable.
As I give him a fifty-rupees note, the owner asks, “Saab - I hope he’s okay.”
I nod. I don’t seem to have a private life anymore. Unsolicited sympathy is a burden I find difficult to carry nowadays.
Papa has ordered Chinese food. My favorite. He has a nip of brandy. His hands become steady. We start eating.
“She wants to take you away from me,” he says.
“Who wants take me away? I don’t understand,” I say perplexed.
“Yes. She’s going to take you away. She came last evening.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
I feel a strange sensation in my stomach. The food becomes tasteless in my mouth. It seems he’s reached the final stage. Hallucinations. Loneliness. Driving him insane. He’s seeing images of mummy now. The point of no return. Fear drills into my vitals.
“Please papa. Mummy is dead. You’re hallucinating again.” I say.
“She came last evening. Wanted your custody.”
“Custody? What are you talking?”
“Yes. She wants to take you away from me.”
“Who?”
“Your birthmother.”
“Birthmother?”
“Yes.”
“But mummy?”
“Don’t delve too much.”
In the evening we sit on the lawns of the club waiting for my birthmother. I feel like a volcano about to erupt. Daddy sits with his head in his hands; nervous, scared. Dr. Ghosh looks away into the distance, as if he’s in our group but not a part of it. I wonder what’s his role in all this.
And opposite me is that grotesque woman with suspiciously black hair. Mrs Murthy. The social worker from the child welfare department.
Social work indeed! Removing adopted children from happy homes and forcibly returning them to their biological parents who had abandoned them in the first place.
And this birthmother of mine. I hate her without even knowing her. First she abandons me. And then after fourteen long years she emerges from nowhere with an overflowing love and concern for me. ‘My papa is a dangerous man,’ she decides. It’s unsafe for me to live with him. So she wants to take me away into the unknown.
“Don’t worry,” Mrs Murthy the social worker says,” Everything will be okay.”
Yes. Everything will be okay. Papa will land up in an asylum. I’ll be condemned to spend the rest of my life with a woman I hate. Our lives will be ruined. Great social service will be done. Yes. Everything will be okay.
Papa is silent. Scared. He’s been warmed by Dr. Ghosh. No outbursts. It’ll only worsen the case.
And me. I’m only a minor. They’ll decide what is good for me. Of course they’ll take my views into consideration. I can see my world disintegrating in front of me.
We sit in silence. Six-thirty. Seven. The longest half-hour of my life.
“She said she’ll be here at six-thirty sharp,” Mrs Murthy says, “I’ll check up.” She pulls out her cell phone. Signal’s weak. She walks to the reception.
We wait. Darkness envelopes.
Mrs Murthy returns. There’s urgency in her step. “Her cell phone is switched off. I rang up the hotel,” she says, “It’s strange. She checked out in the afternoon. Hired a taxi to Bangalore. It’s funny. She hasn’t even bothered to leave a message for me.” Mrs Murthy is disappointed and says angrily, “After all the trouble I have taken. She just goes away without even informing me. She promised she’ll be here at six-thirty sharp.” Looking perturbed, she leaves, promising to check up and let us know.
After she leaves, Dr. Ghosh says to my father, “Come on. Let’s have a drink.”
“No,” my papa says,” I don’t need a drink.”
“Sure?”
“Absolutely sure.”
We take leave of Dr. Ghosh and begin walking home.
“Papa?”
“Yes.”
“This woman. My ‘birthmother’. Does she have cat-eyes? Like me?”
“Don’t delve too much,” papa says.
He puts his protective arm around me and we walk together into the enveloping darkness. But I can see light in the distance.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
by
VIKRAM KARVE
The moment I see Muthu, the office-boy, standing at the door of the class room I feel a familiar fear. I close my eyes and try to concentrate on Ms Bhalla who is reading aloud with dramatic effect Ruskin Bond’s story ‘The Woman on Platform 8’. It’s a moving story about a brief encounter between a woman and a motherless boy.
I love short stories, especially Ruskin Bond, and Ms Bhalla is my favorite teacher. But it’s no use. I can’t hear a word she is saying.
I open my eyes. Ms Bhalla is in a world of her own, reading away, book in her left hand and making gestures with her right. She hasn’t noticed Muthu, or the fact that almost everyone in the class are looking at him and not at her. So thoroughly is she absorbed in herself and so totally is she oblivious of her surroundings that no one dare disturb her.
“………..I watched her until she was lost in the milling crowd,” Ms Bhalla ends the story with a flourish and looks at us triumphantly only to discover that most of her students are looking towards the door. Her expression starts changing.
Before she gets angry someone says, “It’s Muthu, ma’am.”
Ms Bhalla glares at poor Muthu who sheepishly walks in and gives her the chit he is holding in his hand.
I look down into my notebook trying to keep my mind blank, but even without seeing I know that Ms Bhalla is looking at me. “Shanta, go to the principal’s office,” she says, “and take your bag with you.”
Take my bag with me? I feel scared, anxious. I hope it’s not too serious.
“Must be a big binge this time ,” I hear Rita’s voice behind me. Tears well up in my eyes. Rita is from such a happy family. Why is she so mean and nasty?
I’m about to break down when I feel Lata’s reassuring hand on my wrist, “Let’s go, Shanta. I’ll bring your bag.”
We walk through the silent corridors. Our school is located in one of those ancient castle type buildings - cold, dark and gloomy.
“I shouldn’t have left him alone last night,” I say.
“I feel so sad for uncle,” Lata says.
“Whenever I’m there he’s okay. Controls himself. He loves me so much. I’m the only one he’s got - after mummy died.”
“He was improving so much,” Lata says. “Looking so good last weekend.”
Lata is my true friend ….. the only person who I can open my heart to. The others - they watch from a distance. With pity. And a few like Rita with an evil delight at my misfortune.
“Something mush have happened yesterday,” I say. “I wish I had gone home last night. It’s in the evenings that he needs me the most.”
“Shanta, you want me to come,” Lata asks.
“Yes,” I say. I really need some moral support. Facing the world all alone. I can’t bear it any longer.
Ms David, our class-teacher, is standing outside the principal’s office. I follow her in.
I nervously enter the principal’s office. The principal, Mrs Nathan, is talking to a lady sitting opposite her. Noticing me she says, “Ah, Shanta. You daddy’s not well again. He’s admitted in the clinic again. You take the ten o’clock shuttle. And ring me up if you want anything.”
“Can I go with her?” Lata asks.
“You go back to class,” the principal says sternly, “you’ve got a maths test at 10 o’clock haven’t you?”
“Please Miss…. “ Lata pleads with Ms David, our class teacher, but Ms David says,” Lata you are in the ninth standard now. Be serious about your studies. And today afternoon is the basketball final. How can you be absent?”
I feel pain in the interiors of my mind. No one ever tells me to be serious about studies; or even sports.
Lata gives me my school-bag and leaves quickly.
Mrs Nathan takes off her glasses and looks at me. There is compassion in her eyes. “Be brave, Shanta,” she says. “This is Ms Pushpa - an ex-student of our school.”
“Good morning, ma’am,” I say.
“Hello, Shanta.” Ms Pushpa says. “I’m also taking the train to Coonoor. We’ll travel together.”
As we leave the principal’s office I can feel the piercing looks of pity burning into me. The teachers, the staff, even the gardener. Everyone knows. And they know that I know that they know. Morose faces creased with lines of compassion. The atmosphere of pity. The deafening silence. It’s terrible. I just want to get away from the place. These people - they just don’t understand that I want empathy; not sympathy.
I walk with Ms Pushpa taking the short-cut to Lovedale railway station. It’s cold, damp and the smell of eucalyptus fills my nostrils. A typical winter morning in the Nilgiris.
I look at Ms Pushpa. She looks so chic. Blue jeans, bright red pullover, fair creamy flawless complexion, jet-black hair neatly tied in a bun, dark Ray-Ban sunglasses of the latest style. A good-looking woman with smart feminine features. Elegant. Fashionable. Well groomed.
We walk in silence. I wait for her to start the conversation. I don’t know how much she knows.
“You’re in Champak house, aren’t you?” she asks looking at the crest on my blazer.
Polite conversation. Asking a question to which you already know the answer.
“Yes ma’am,” I answer.
“I too was in Champak house,” she says.
“When did you pass out, ma’am ?” I ask.
“1987,” she says.
I do a quick mental calculation. She must be in her mid-thirties. 35, maybe. She certainly looks young for her age. And very beautiful.
We cross the tracks and reach the solitary platform of Lovedale railway station.
“Let me buy your ticket. You’re going to Coonoor aren’t you?” she asks.
“Thank you ma’am. I’ve got a season ticket,” I say.
“Season ticket ?” she asked surprised.
“I’m a day scholar, ma’am. I travel every day from Coonoor,” I say.
“Oh! In our time it was strictly a boarding school,” she says.
“Even now ma’am,” I say. “I’ve got special permission. My father doesn’t keep well. I have to look after him.”
“Oh, yes,” she says, and walks towards the deserted booking window.
Lovedale is the most picturesque railway station on the Nilgiri mountain railway but today it looks gloomy, desolate. One has to be happy inside for things to look beautiful outside.
She returns with her ticket and we sit on the solitary bench.
“Where do you stay ma’am ?” I ask.
“Bangalore,” she says. “You’ve been there?”
“Yes”
“Often?”
“Only once. Last month. For my father’s treatment,” I say.”
She asks the question I’m waiting for, “Shanta. Tell me. Your father. What’s wrong with him ? What’s he suffering from ?”
I’ve never really understood why people ask me this question to which I suspect they already know the answer. Each probably has their own reason. Curiosity, lip-sympathy, genuine concern, sadistic pleasure. At first I’d feel embarrassed, try to cover up, mask, give all sorts of explanations. But now I have learnt that it is best to be blunt and straightforward.
“He’s an alcoholic,” I say. Most people shut up after this. Or change the topic of conversation. But Ms Pushpa pursues, “It must be terrible living with him. He must be getting violent.”
“No,” I say. “With me papa is very gentle. He loves me a lot.”
Tears well up in my eyes and my nose feels heavy. I take out my handkerchief. I feel her comforting arm around my shoulder and know her concern is genuine.
Suddenly the station bell rings, I hear the whistle and the blue mountain train streams into the platform. They still use steam engines here on the Nilgiri mountain railway. The train is almost empty. It’s off-season, there are no tourists, and in any case this train is never crowded as it returns to Coonoor after transporting all the office-goers to Ooty.
We sit opposite each other in an empty compartment. She still hasn’t taken off her dark sunglasses even though it is overcast and it begins to drizzle.
She looks at her watch. I look at mine. 10 AM. Half-an-hour’s journey to Coonoor.
“You came today morning, ma’am ?” I ask.
“No. Last evening. I stayed with Monica David. Your class teacher. We were classmates.”
What a difference. Miss David is so schoolmarmish. And Ms Pushpa so mod and chic. But I better be careful what I say. After all, classmates are classmates.
The train begins its journey and soon Ketti valley comes into view.
“There used to be orchards down there. Now there are buildings,” she says.
“You’ve come after a long time?” I ask.
“Yes. Almost nineteen years. The first time since passing out,” she says.
“For some work? Children’s admission?”
“No, No,” she bursts out laughing, “I’m single. Happily unmarried.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, contrite.
“Come on, Shanta. It’s Okay,” she says. “I’ve come for some work in Coonoor. Just visited the school for old times’ sake.”
“You must come during Founder’s day. You’ll meet everyone,” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “All these years I was abroad. America, Singapore, Manila, Europe. Now that I’m in Bangalore, I’ll definitely make it.”
“You work?” I ask.
“Yes. In an MNC.”
Must be an MBA from a top business school. Like IIM. Or maybe even Harvard. Wish I could be like her. Independent. Smart. Elegant. Successful. I certainly have the talent. But what about papa? Who will look after him?
I try not to think of the future. It all looks so bleak, uncertain. Better not think of it. I don’t even know what awaits me at the clinic. Just a few minutes more. It’s unbearable - the tension. Why do I have to go through all this?
She’s looking out of the window. It’s grey and cold. Dark clouds. But she still wears her dark sunglasses. Hasn’t taken them off even once.
Suddenly we enter the Ketti tunnel. It’s pitch dark. The smell of steam and smoke. It’s warm. Comforting. I close my eyes.
The train whistles. Slows down. I open my eyes. She’s still wearing dark glasses. Maybe she too has something to hide. And me. What I want to hide, everyone knows; but makes a pretence of not knowing. At least in my presence.
The train stops at Ketti. On the platform there is a group of girls, my age. They are in a jovial mood; giggling, eyes dancing, faces beaming, so carefree and happy. Their happiness hurts me deep down in my heart.
The girls don’t get in. Dressed in track-suits, and Ketti valley school blazers, they are probably waiting for the up train to Ooty which crosses here. Must be going for the basketball match.
A girl with a familiar face walks up to me with her friend.
“Not playing?” she asks.
“No,” I say.
“I wish we knew. We wouldn’t have gone so early to practice,” she says.
“Who’s captaining?” her friend asks.
“Lata maybe. I don’t know,” I say.
“Where are you going?”
“Coonoor.”
“Coonoor?”
“My father’s in hospital. He’s not well.”
“Oh! Hope he gets well soon. Okay bye.”
The girls walk away whispering to each other. And I hear the hushed voice of the one I’ve met for the first time, “Poor thing.”
“Poor thing.” The words pierce through my heart. “Poor thing.” The words echo in the interiors of my mind. “Poor thing!” “Poor thing!” “Poor thing!” The resonance is deafening. I feel I’m going mad. I feel Ms Pushpa’s hand on mine. A slight pressure. Comforting.
The up train comes, the girls get in, and train leaves towards Ooty.
Our engine’s whistle shrieks, our train starts moving. Outside it starts to rain. We close the windows. The smallness of the compartment forces us into a strange intimacy.
“I’ll come with you to the hospital,” Ms Pushpa says.
I know she means well, but nowadays I hate to depend on the kindness of strangers; so I reply, “Thank you ma’am, but I’ll manage. I’m used to it.”
“Is he often like this?” she asks.
Why is she asking me all this? It seems genuine compassion. Or maybe she has her own troubles. And talking to me makes her own troubles go away.
I decide to give her every thing in one go. “When I am there he’s okay. Controls himself. He loves me more than his drink. Last night I stayed at the hostel to study for a test. And he must have felt lonely and hit the bottle. I shouldn’t have left him alone. After mummy’s gone I am the only one he’s got, and he’s the only one I’ve got.” I pause and I say, “He was improving so much. Something must have happened last evening. He must have got upset - really upset.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says. Her tone is apologetic as if she were responsible in some way.
“Why should you feel sorry, ma’am. It’s my fate. I’ve to just find out what’s upset him. And see it doesn’t happen again. Maybe somebody visited him, passed some hurting remark. He’s very sensitive.”
Her expression changes slightly. She winces. “Does he tell you everything?” she asks.
“Of course he tells me everything,” I say, “There are no secrets between us. I’m his best friend.”
“I wish I could help you in some way,” she says.
I don’t say anything. I close my eyes. What a fool I have been, I’ve told her everything. And I know nothing about her. Not even the color of her eyes - she hasn’t even once taken off her dark sunglasses, like someone who’s blind. How cleverly she’s manipulated the conversation. Maybe people who are happy and successful feel good listening to other people’s sorrows.
I feel stifled. I open my eyes and the window. A shrill whistle and we pass through a gorge. Noise, steam, smoke, and suddenly it becomes sunny and the train begins to slow down.
“We’ve reached,” I say. We get down on the platform at Coonoor.
“I’ll come with you,” she says.
“Thanks. But it’s okay. I’ll go by myself.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
Ms Pushpa takes off her dark sunglasses and looks at me. I see her eyes. For the first time. A shiver passes through me as I look into her eyes. They are greenish-grey. She’s got cat-eyes. Exactly like mine.
Suddenly she takes me in her arms and hugs me in a tight embrace.
Stunned, I struggle, feeling acutely uncomfortable.
She releases me and I just stand there feeling numb, confused.
The whistle shrieks. I come to my senses. Look up at her. Her eyes are red and tears flow down her cheeks.
Suddenly she puts on her sunglasses, turns and walks away.
As I walk towards the hospital I think about my brief encounter with Ms Pushpa, her rather strange behaviour. It’s certainly not one of those ‘hail fellow – well met’ type of time-pass conversations between co-passengers. But suddenly she’s gone and I don’t know anything about her. She hasn’t even given me her card, address, phone, nothing. It all happened so fast.
The Clinic. Well laid-out. Neat. Spick and span. Anesthetic smell. An air of discipline. I walk through the corridor. I know where to go.
“Yes?” a voice says from behind.
I turn around. It’s a matron. I’ve never seen her before. Her eyes are hard, pitiless.
I tell her who I am. Her expression changes. Lines of compassion begin to crease her face. But still, her face has something terrible written on it.
I smile. I have learnt to smile even when I feel like weeping.
I enter the room. Papa is lying on the solitary bed. He looks okay. His eyes are closed.
“Papa,” I say softly.
He opens his eyes. “Shanta! Come to me,” he says. I rush to his bed. He hugs me tightly, “Don’t go Shanta. Don’t leave me and go away,” he cries.
“Don’t cry papa. I’ll always be with you. I’ll never leave you alone again,” I say, tears rolling down my checks.
We both cry copiously. Time stands still. I sense the presence of people in the room. Apart from the matron, there is the comforting face of Dr. Ghosh and a young doctor in white coat, stethoscope around his neck.
“Can I take him?” I ask.
“Of course,” Dr. Ghosh says.” He’s okay now.”
“But sir,” the young doctor protests and says, “He’s hallucinating….”
“It’s okay,” Dr. Ghosh interrupts giving him a sharp look. “Shanta knows how to look after him; like a mother. Isn’t it Shanta?”
“Yes,” I say.
Papa gives sheepish look. That’s what I like about Dr. Ghosh. The way he gets his message across. There is no need for him to reprimand papa. Especially in front of me. My papa’s own remorse is his own worst reprimand.
We talk in silence. I don’t ask him any thing. He’ll tell me when he wants to.
“You’re hungry?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. It’s almost noon.
Soon we sit at the Garden Restaurant overlooking Sim’s Park. He takes his hands out of the overcoat pockets and picks up the menu card. His hands tremble. DT. Delirium Tremens. Withdrawal symptoms. Must have had a prolonged bout of drinking last night. I know what to do. Just in case. I don’t want him to turn cold turkey.
“Papa, you order,” I say and pick up my school bag and briskly walk across the road to the wine shop. On seeing me the owner puts a small bottle of brandy in a brown paper bag and gives it to me. I put in my school bag. No words are exchanged. No permit is required. It doesn’t matter that I’m a 14 year old schoolgirl. He knows. Everyone knows. Pity. Compassion.
But I know that unseen eyes see, and tongues I cannot hear will wag.
The silence. It’s grotesque. Deafening. Unbearable.
As I give him a fifty-rupees note, the owner asks, “Saab - I hope he’s okay.”
I nod. I don’t seem to have a private life anymore. Unsolicited sympathy is a burden I find difficult to carry nowadays.
Papa has ordered Chinese food. My favorite. He has a nip of brandy. His hands become steady. We start eating.
“She wants to take you away from me,” he says.
“Who wants take me away? I don’t understand,” I say perplexed.
“Yes. She’s going to take you away. She came last evening.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
I feel a strange sensation in my stomach. The food becomes tasteless in my mouth. It seems he’s reached the final stage. Hallucinations. Loneliness. Driving him insane. He’s seeing images of mummy now. The point of no return. Fear drills into my vitals.
“Please papa. Mummy is dead. You’re hallucinating again.” I say.
“She came last evening. Wanted your custody.”
“Custody? What are you talking?”
“Yes. She wants to take you away from me.”
“Who?”
“Your birthmother.”
“Birthmother?”
“Yes.”
“But mummy?”
“Don’t delve too much.”
In the evening we sit on the lawns of the club waiting for my birthmother. I feel like a volcano about to erupt. Daddy sits with his head in his hands; nervous, scared. Dr. Ghosh looks away into the distance, as if he’s in our group but not a part of it. I wonder what’s his role in all this.
And opposite me is that grotesque woman with suspiciously black hair. Mrs Murthy. The social worker from the child welfare department.
Social work indeed! Removing adopted children from happy homes and forcibly returning them to their biological parents who had abandoned them in the first place.
And this birthmother of mine. I hate her without even knowing her. First she abandons me. And then after fourteen long years she emerges from nowhere with an overflowing love and concern for me. ‘My papa is a dangerous man,’ she decides. It’s unsafe for me to live with him. So she wants to take me away into the unknown.
“Don’t worry,” Mrs Murthy the social worker says,” Everything will be okay.”
Yes. Everything will be okay. Papa will land up in an asylum. I’ll be condemned to spend the rest of my life with a woman I hate. Our lives will be ruined. Great social service will be done. Yes. Everything will be okay.
Papa is silent. Scared. He’s been warmed by Dr. Ghosh. No outbursts. It’ll only worsen the case.
And me. I’m only a minor. They’ll decide what is good for me. Of course they’ll take my views into consideration. I can see my world disintegrating in front of me.
We sit in silence. Six-thirty. Seven. The longest half-hour of my life.
“She said she’ll be here at six-thirty sharp,” Mrs Murthy says, “I’ll check up.” She pulls out her cell phone. Signal’s weak. She walks to the reception.
We wait. Darkness envelopes.
Mrs Murthy returns. There’s urgency in her step. “Her cell phone is switched off. I rang up the hotel,” she says, “It’s strange. She checked out in the afternoon. Hired a taxi to Bangalore. It’s funny. She hasn’t even bothered to leave a message for me.” Mrs Murthy is disappointed and says angrily, “After all the trouble I have taken. She just goes away without even informing me. She promised she’ll be here at six-thirty sharp.” Looking perturbed, she leaves, promising to check up and let us know.
After she leaves, Dr. Ghosh says to my father, “Come on. Let’s have a drink.”
“No,” my papa says,” I don’t need a drink.”
“Sure?”
“Absolutely sure.”
We take leave of Dr. Ghosh and begin walking home.
“Papa?”
“Yes.”
“This woman. My ‘birthmother’. Does she have cat-eyes? Like me?”
“Don’t delve too much,” papa says.
He puts his protective arm around me and we walk together into the enveloping darkness. But I can see light in the distance.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Lovedale by Vikram Karve
LOVEDALE
(a short story)
by
VIKRAM KARVE
Lovedale. A quaint little station on the Nilgiri mountain railway in South India. There is just one small platform – and on it, towards its southern end, a solitary bench. If you sit on this bench you will see in front of you, beyond the railway track, an undulating valley, covered with eucalyptus trees, and in the distance the silhouette of a huge structure, which looks like a castle, with an impressive clock-tower. In this mighty building is located a famous boarding school – one of the best schools in India. Many such ‘elite’ schools are known more for snob value than academic achievements, but this one is different – it is a school known for its rich tradition of excellence.
Lovedale, in 1970. That’s all there is in Lovedale – this famous public school, a small tea-estate called Lovedale (from which this place got its name), a tiny post office and, of course, the lonely railway platform with its solitary bench.
It’s a cold damp depressing winter morning, and since the school is closed for winter, the platform is deserted except for two people – yes, just two persons – a woman and a small girl, shivering in the morning mist, sitting on the solitary bench. It’s almost 9 o’clock – time for the morning “toy-train” from the plains carrying tourists via Coonoor to Ooty, the “Queen” of hill-stations, just three kilometers ahead - the end of the line. But this morning the train is late, probably because of the dense fog and the drizzle on the mountain-slopes, and it will be empty – for there are hardly any tourists in this cold and damp winter season.
“I’m dying to meet mummy. And this stupid train – it’s always late,” the girl says. She is dressed in school uniform – gray blazer, thick gray woolen skirt, navy-blue stockings, freshly polished black shoes, her hair tied smartly in two small plaits with black ribbons.
The woman, 55 – maybe 60, dressed in a white sari with a thick white shawl draped over her shoulder and a white scarf around her head covering her ears, looks lovingly at the girl, softly takes the girl’s hand in her own, and says, “ It will come. Look at the weather. The driver can hardly see in this mist. And it must be raining down there in Ketti valley.”
“I hate this place. It’s so cold and lonely. Everyone has gone home for the winter holidays and we have nowhere to go. Why do we have to spend our holidays here every time?”
“You know we can’t stay with her in the hostel.”
“But her training is over now. And she’s become an executive – that’s what she wrote.”
“Yes. Yes. She is an executive now. After two years of tough training. Very creditable; after all that has happened,” the old woman says.
“She has to take us to Mumbai with her now. No more excuses.”
“Of course. Let your mummy come. This time we’ll tell her to take us all to Mumbai.”
“And we’ll all stay together – like we did when Daddy was there.”
“Yes. Mummy will go to work. You will go to school. And I will look after both of you. Just like before.”
“Only Daddy won’t be there. Why did God take Daddy away?” the girl says, tears welling in her eyes.
“Don’t think those sad things. We cannot change what has happened. You must be brave – like your mummy,” says the old lady putting her hand softly around the girl. There is no greater pain than to remember happier times when in distress.
Meanwhile the toy-train is meandering its way laboriously round the steep u-curve, desperately pushed by a hissing steam engine, as it leaves Wellington station on its way to Ketti. A man and a woman sit facing each other in the tiny first class compartment. There is no one else.
“You must tell her today,” the man says.
“Yes,” the woman replies softly.
“You should have told her before.”
“When ?”
“You could have written, called her up.”
“How could I ?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know how she will react. She loved her father very much.”
“Now she will have to love me. I am her new father now.”
“Yes, I know,” the woman says, tears welling up in her eyes. “I don’t know how to tell her; how she’ll take it. I think we should wait for some time. Baby is very sensitive.”
“ ‘Baby’ ! Why do you still call her Baby? She is a grown up girl now. You must call her by her real name. Damayanti – what a nice name – and you call her ‘Baby’”
“It’s her pet name. Deepak always liked to call her Baby.”
“I don’t. It’s ridiculous,” the man says firmly. “Anyway, that we will see later. But you tell her about us today. Tell both of them.”
“My mother-in-law – what will she feel ?”
“She’ll understand.”
“Poor thing. She will be all alone.”
“She’s got her work to keep her busy.”
“She’s old and weak. I don’t think she’ll be able to do the matron’s job much longer.”
“Let her work till she can. Then we’ll see.”
“Can’t we take her with us?”
“You know it’s not possible.”
“Poor thing. Where will she go ?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll arrange something – I know an excellent place near Lonavala. She will be very comfortable there - it’s an ideal place for senior citizens.”
“An Old Age Home ?”
“Yes. I’ve already spoken to them. Let her continue here till she can. Then we’ll shift her there.”
“How cruel. She was so good to me, looked after Baby, when we were devastated. And now we discard her when she needs us most,” the woman says and starts sobbing.
“Don’t get sentimental. You have to face the harsh reality. You know we can’t take her with us. Kavita, you must begin a new life now – no point carrying the baggage of your past,” the man realizes he has said something wrong and instantly apologizes, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“You did. I hate you, you are so cruel and selfish,” the woman says, turns away from the man and looks out of the window.
They travel in silence. A disquieting silence. Suddenly it is dark, as the train enters a tunnel, and as it emerges on the other side, the woman can see the vast green Ketti Valley with its undulating mountains in the distance.
“I think I’ll also get down at Lovedale. I’ll tell them. Explain everything. And get over with it once and for all,” the man says.
“No! No! The sudden shock may upset them. I have to do this carefully. You don’t get down at Lovedale. Go straight to Ooty. I’ll tell them everything and we’ll do as we decided.”
“I was only trying to help you. Make things easier. I want to meet Damayanti. Tell her about us. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“No. Let me do this. I don’t want her to see you before I tell her. I don’t know how she’ll react. I’ll have to do it very gently.”
“Okay,” the man says. “Make sure you wind up everything at the school. We have to leave for Mumbai tomorrow. There is so much to be done. We’ve hardly got any time left.”
“Lovedale’s coming,” the woman gets up and takes out her bag from the shelf.
“Sure you don’t want me to come?” asks the man.
“Not now. I’ll ring you up,” says the woman.
“Okay. But tell them everything. We can’t wait any longer.”
“Just leave everything to me. Don’t make it more difficult.”
They sit in silence waiting for Lovedale to come.
On the solitary bench on the platform at Lovedale station the girl and her grandmother wait patiently for the train which will bring their deliverance.
“I hate it over here. The cold scary dormitories. At night I miss mummy tucking me in. And every night I count DLFMTC ?”
“DLFMTC ?”
“Days Left For Mummy To Come ! Others count DLTGH – Days Left To Go Home.”
“Next time you too …”
“No. No. I am not going to stay here in boarding school. I don’t know why we came here to this horrible place. I hate boarding school. I miss mummy so much. We could have stayed on in Mumbai with her.”
“Now we will. Your mummy’s training is over. She can hire a house now. Or get a loan. We will try to buy a good house. I’ve saved some money too.”
The lone station-master strikes the bell outside his office. The occupants of the solitary bench look towards their left. There is no one else on the platform. And suddenly the train emerges from under the bridge – pushed by the hissing steam engine.
Only one person gets down from the train – a beautiful woman, around 30. The girl runs into her arms. The old woman walks towards her with a welcoming smile. The man, sitting in the train, looks cautiously trying not to be seen. A whistle; and the train starts and moves out of the station towards Ooty.
That evening the woman tells them everything.
At noon the next day, four people wait at Lovedale station for the train from Ooty – the girl, her mother, her grandmother and the man. The girl presses close to her grandmother and looks at her new ‘father’ with trepidation. He gives her a smile of forced geniality. The old woman holds the girl tight to her body and looks at the man with distaste. The young woman looks with awe, mixed with hope, at her new husband. No one speaks. Time stands still. And suddenly the train enters.
“I don’t want to go,” the girl cries, clinging to her grandmother.
“Don’t you want to stay with your mummy? You hated boarding school didn’t you? ” the man says extending his hand.
The girl recoils and says, “No. No. I like it here. I don’t want to come. I like boarding school.”
“Come Baby, we have to go,” her mother says as tears well up in her eyes.
“What about granny – she will be all alone. No mummy - you also stay here. We all will stay here. Let him go to Mumbai,” the girl pleads.
“Kavita. The train is going to leave,” the man says firmly to the young woman.
“Go Baby. Be a good girl. I will be alright,” says the old woman releasing the girl.
As her mother gently holds her arm and guides her towards the train, for the first time in her life, the girl feels that her mother’s hand is like the clasp of an iron gate.
“I will come and meet you in Mumbai. I promise,” the grandmother says. But the girl feels scared – something inside tells her she that may never see her grandmother again.
As the train heads towards the plains, the old woman begins to walk her longest mile – her loneliest mile – into emptiness.
And Lovedale station, the mute witness, doesn’t even a shed a tear. It tries. But it can’t. Poor thing. It’s not human. So it suffers in inanimate helplessness. A pity. What a pity !
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
(a short story)
by
VIKRAM KARVE
Lovedale. A quaint little station on the Nilgiri mountain railway in South India. There is just one small platform – and on it, towards its southern end, a solitary bench. If you sit on this bench you will see in front of you, beyond the railway track, an undulating valley, covered with eucalyptus trees, and in the distance the silhouette of a huge structure, which looks like a castle, with an impressive clock-tower. In this mighty building is located a famous boarding school – one of the best schools in India. Many such ‘elite’ schools are known more for snob value than academic achievements, but this one is different – it is a school known for its rich tradition of excellence.
Lovedale, in 1970. That’s all there is in Lovedale – this famous public school, a small tea-estate called Lovedale (from which this place got its name), a tiny post office and, of course, the lonely railway platform with its solitary bench.
It’s a cold damp depressing winter morning, and since the school is closed for winter, the platform is deserted except for two people – yes, just two persons – a woman and a small girl, shivering in the morning mist, sitting on the solitary bench. It’s almost 9 o’clock – time for the morning “toy-train” from the plains carrying tourists via Coonoor to Ooty, the “Queen” of hill-stations, just three kilometers ahead - the end of the line. But this morning the train is late, probably because of the dense fog and the drizzle on the mountain-slopes, and it will be empty – for there are hardly any tourists in this cold and damp winter season.
“I’m dying to meet mummy. And this stupid train – it’s always late,” the girl says. She is dressed in school uniform – gray blazer, thick gray woolen skirt, navy-blue stockings, freshly polished black shoes, her hair tied smartly in two small plaits with black ribbons.
The woman, 55 – maybe 60, dressed in a white sari with a thick white shawl draped over her shoulder and a white scarf around her head covering her ears, looks lovingly at the girl, softly takes the girl’s hand in her own, and says, “ It will come. Look at the weather. The driver can hardly see in this mist. And it must be raining down there in Ketti valley.”
“I hate this place. It’s so cold and lonely. Everyone has gone home for the winter holidays and we have nowhere to go. Why do we have to spend our holidays here every time?”
“You know we can’t stay with her in the hostel.”
“But her training is over now. And she’s become an executive – that’s what she wrote.”
“Yes. Yes. She is an executive now. After two years of tough training. Very creditable; after all that has happened,” the old woman says.
“She has to take us to Mumbai with her now. No more excuses.”
“Of course. Let your mummy come. This time we’ll tell her to take us all to Mumbai.”
“And we’ll all stay together – like we did when Daddy was there.”
“Yes. Mummy will go to work. You will go to school. And I will look after both of you. Just like before.”
“Only Daddy won’t be there. Why did God take Daddy away?” the girl says, tears welling in her eyes.
“Don’t think those sad things. We cannot change what has happened. You must be brave – like your mummy,” says the old lady putting her hand softly around the girl. There is no greater pain than to remember happier times when in distress.
Meanwhile the toy-train is meandering its way laboriously round the steep u-curve, desperately pushed by a hissing steam engine, as it leaves Wellington station on its way to Ketti. A man and a woman sit facing each other in the tiny first class compartment. There is no one else.
“You must tell her today,” the man says.
“Yes,” the woman replies softly.
“You should have told her before.”
“When ?”
“You could have written, called her up.”
“How could I ?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know how she will react. She loved her father very much.”
“Now she will have to love me. I am her new father now.”
“Yes, I know,” the woman says, tears welling up in her eyes. “I don’t know how to tell her; how she’ll take it. I think we should wait for some time. Baby is very sensitive.”
“ ‘Baby’ ! Why do you still call her Baby? She is a grown up girl now. You must call her by her real name. Damayanti – what a nice name – and you call her ‘Baby’”
“It’s her pet name. Deepak always liked to call her Baby.”
“I don’t. It’s ridiculous,” the man says firmly. “Anyway, that we will see later. But you tell her about us today. Tell both of them.”
“My mother-in-law – what will she feel ?”
“She’ll understand.”
“Poor thing. She will be all alone.”
“She’s got her work to keep her busy.”
“She’s old and weak. I don’t think she’ll be able to do the matron’s job much longer.”
“Let her work till she can. Then we’ll see.”
“Can’t we take her with us?”
“You know it’s not possible.”
“Poor thing. Where will she go ?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll arrange something – I know an excellent place near Lonavala. She will be very comfortable there - it’s an ideal place for senior citizens.”
“An Old Age Home ?”
“Yes. I’ve already spoken to them. Let her continue here till she can. Then we’ll shift her there.”
“How cruel. She was so good to me, looked after Baby, when we were devastated. And now we discard her when she needs us most,” the woman says and starts sobbing.
“Don’t get sentimental. You have to face the harsh reality. You know we can’t take her with us. Kavita, you must begin a new life now – no point carrying the baggage of your past,” the man realizes he has said something wrong and instantly apologizes, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“You did. I hate you, you are so cruel and selfish,” the woman says, turns away from the man and looks out of the window.
They travel in silence. A disquieting silence. Suddenly it is dark, as the train enters a tunnel, and as it emerges on the other side, the woman can see the vast green Ketti Valley with its undulating mountains in the distance.
“I think I’ll also get down at Lovedale. I’ll tell them. Explain everything. And get over with it once and for all,” the man says.
“No! No! The sudden shock may upset them. I have to do this carefully. You don’t get down at Lovedale. Go straight to Ooty. I’ll tell them everything and we’ll do as we decided.”
“I was only trying to help you. Make things easier. I want to meet Damayanti. Tell her about us. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“No. Let me do this. I don’t want her to see you before I tell her. I don’t know how she’ll react. I’ll have to do it very gently.”
“Okay,” the man says. “Make sure you wind up everything at the school. We have to leave for Mumbai tomorrow. There is so much to be done. We’ve hardly got any time left.”
“Lovedale’s coming,” the woman gets up and takes out her bag from the shelf.
“Sure you don’t want me to come?” asks the man.
“Not now. I’ll ring you up,” says the woman.
“Okay. But tell them everything. We can’t wait any longer.”
“Just leave everything to me. Don’t make it more difficult.”
They sit in silence waiting for Lovedale to come.
On the solitary bench on the platform at Lovedale station the girl and her grandmother wait patiently for the train which will bring their deliverance.
“I hate it over here. The cold scary dormitories. At night I miss mummy tucking me in. And every night I count DLFMTC ?”
“DLFMTC ?”
“Days Left For Mummy To Come ! Others count DLTGH – Days Left To Go Home.”
“Next time you too …”
“No. No. I am not going to stay here in boarding school. I don’t know why we came here to this horrible place. I hate boarding school. I miss mummy so much. We could have stayed on in Mumbai with her.”
“Now we will. Your mummy’s training is over. She can hire a house now. Or get a loan. We will try to buy a good house. I’ve saved some money too.”
The lone station-master strikes the bell outside his office. The occupants of the solitary bench look towards their left. There is no one else on the platform. And suddenly the train emerges from under the bridge – pushed by the hissing steam engine.
Only one person gets down from the train – a beautiful woman, around 30. The girl runs into her arms. The old woman walks towards her with a welcoming smile. The man, sitting in the train, looks cautiously trying not to be seen. A whistle; and the train starts and moves out of the station towards Ooty.
That evening the woman tells them everything.
At noon the next day, four people wait at Lovedale station for the train from Ooty – the girl, her mother, her grandmother and the man. The girl presses close to her grandmother and looks at her new ‘father’ with trepidation. He gives her a smile of forced geniality. The old woman holds the girl tight to her body and looks at the man with distaste. The young woman looks with awe, mixed with hope, at her new husband. No one speaks. Time stands still. And suddenly the train enters.
“I don’t want to go,” the girl cries, clinging to her grandmother.
“Don’t you want to stay with your mummy? You hated boarding school didn’t you? ” the man says extending his hand.
The girl recoils and says, “No. No. I like it here. I don’t want to come. I like boarding school.”
“Come Baby, we have to go,” her mother says as tears well up in her eyes.
“What about granny – she will be all alone. No mummy - you also stay here. We all will stay here. Let him go to Mumbai,” the girl pleads.
“Kavita. The train is going to leave,” the man says firmly to the young woman.
“Go Baby. Be a good girl. I will be alright,” says the old woman releasing the girl.
As her mother gently holds her arm and guides her towards the train, for the first time in her life, the girl feels that her mother’s hand is like the clasp of an iron gate.
“I will come and meet you in Mumbai. I promise,” the grandmother says. But the girl feels scared – something inside tells her she that may never see her grandmother again.
As the train heads towards the plains, the old woman begins to walk her longest mile – her loneliest mile – into emptiness.
And Lovedale station, the mute witness, doesn’t even a shed a tear. It tries. But it can’t. Poor thing. It’s not human. So it suffers in inanimate helplessness. A pity. What a pity !
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
Friday, January 06, 2006
Book Review
Book Review by Vikram Waman Karve
The Book : Looking Back
The Author : Dhondo Keshav Karve
First Published in 1936
Looking Back ( The Autobiography ) by Dhondo Keshav Karve ( Maharshi Karve ) with a preface by Frederick J. Gould.
Dear Reader, you must be wondering why I am reviewing an autobiography written in 1936. Well, I stay on Maharshi Karve Road in Mumbai. I share the same surname as the author. Also, I happen to be the great grandson of Maharshi Karve. But, beyond that, compared to him I am a nobody – not even a pygmy. He saw his goal, persisted ceaselessly throughout his life with missionary zeal and transformed the destiny of the Indian Woman. The first university for women in India - The SNDT University and educational institutions for women covering the entire spectrum ranging from pre-primary schools to post-graduate, engineering, vocational and professional colleges bear eloquent testimony to his indomitable spirit, untiring perseverance and determined efforts.
In his preface, Frederick J Gould writes that “the narrative is a parable of his career” – a most apt description of the autobiography. The author tells his life-story in a simple straightforward manner, with remarkable candour and humility; resulting in a narrative which is friendly, interesting and readable. Autobiographies are sometimes voluminous tomes but this a small book, 200 pages, and a very easy comfortable enjoyable read that makes it almost unputdownable.
Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve was born on 18th of April 1958. In the first few chapters he writes about Murud, his native place in Konkan, Maharashtra, his ancestry and his early life– the description is so vivid that you can clearly “see” through the author’s eye. His struggle to appear in the public service examination ( walking 110 miles in torrential rain and difficult terrain to Satara), and the shattering disappointment at not being allowed to appear because “he looked too young”, make poignant reading.
“Many undreamt of things have happened in my life and given a different turn to my career” he writes, and then goes on to describe his high school and, later, college education at The Wilson College Bombay (Mumbai) narrating various incidents that convinced him of the role of destiny and serendipity in shaping his life and career as a teacher and then Professor of Mathematics.
He married at the age of fourteen but began his marital life at the age of twenty! This was the custom of those days. Let’s read the author’s own words on his domestic life: “ … I was married at the age of fourteen and my wife was then eight. Her family lived very near to ours and we knew each other very well and had often played together. However after marriage we had to forget our old relation as playmates and to behave as strangers, often looking toward each other but never standing together to exchange words…. We had to communicate with each other through my sister…… My marital life began under the parental roof at Murud when I was twenty…” Their domestic bliss was short lived as his wife died after a few years leaving behind a son… “Thus ended the first part of my domestic life”… he concludes.
An incident highlighting the plight of a widow left an indelible impression on him and germinated in him the idea of widow remarriage. He married Godubai, who was widowed when she was only eight years old, was a sister of his friend Mr. Joshi, and now twenty three was studying at Pandita Ramabai’s Sharada Sadan as its first widow student . Let’s read in the author’s own words how he asked for her hand in marriage to her father – “ I told him…..I had made up my mind to marry a widow. He sat silent for a minute and then hinted that there was no need to go in search of such a bride”.
He describes in detail the ostracism he faced from some orthodox quarters and systematically enunciates his life work - his organization of the Widow Marriage Association, Hindu Widows Home, Mahila Vidyalaya, Nishkama Karma Math, and other institutions, culminating in the birth of the first Indian Women’s University ( SNDT University). The trials and tribulations he faced in his life-work of emancipation of education of women (widows in particular) and how he overcame them by his persistent steadfast endeavours and indomitable spirit makes illuminating reading and underlines the fact that Dr. DK Karve was no arm-chair social reformer but a person devoted to achieve his dreams on the ground in reality. These chapters form the meat of the book and make compelling reading. ( His dedication and meticulousness is evident in the appendices where he has given datewise details of his engagements and subscriptions down to the paisa for his educational institutions from various places he visited around the world to propagate their cause).
He then describes his world tour, at 71, to meet eminent educationists to propagate the cause of the Women’s University, his later domestic life and ends with a few of his views and ideas for posterity. At the end he writes: “ Here ends the story of my life. I hope this simple story will serve some useful purpose”.
He wrote this in 1936. He lived till the 9th of November 1962, achieving so much more on the way, was conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters ( D.Litt.) by the Banaras Hindu University in 1942 followed by Poona in 1951, SNDT in 1955, and Bombay(LL.D.) in 1957. Maharshi Karve received the Padma Vibhushan in 1955 and the nation’s highest honour the “Bharat Ratna” in 1958, a fitting tribute at the age of 100.
Epilogue
I was born in 1956, and have fleeting memories of Maharshi Karve, during our visits to Hingne in 1961-62, as a small boy of 5 or 6 can. I have written this book review with the hope that some of us, particularly students of SNDT, Cummins College of Engineering for Women, SOFT, Karve Institute of Social Sciences and other educational institutions related to Maharshi Karve, read about his stellar pioneering work and draw inspiration from his autobiography.
Two other good books pertaining to the life of Maharshi Karve which I have read are : Maharshi Karve by Ganesh L. Chandavarkar, Popular Prakashan (1958) and Maharshi Karve – His 105 years, Hingne Stree Shikshan Samstha (1963).
VIKRAM WAMAN KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
The Book : Looking Back
The Author : Dhondo Keshav Karve
First Published in 1936
Looking Back ( The Autobiography ) by Dhondo Keshav Karve ( Maharshi Karve ) with a preface by Frederick J. Gould.
Dear Reader, you must be wondering why I am reviewing an autobiography written in 1936. Well, I stay on Maharshi Karve Road in Mumbai. I share the same surname as the author. Also, I happen to be the great grandson of Maharshi Karve. But, beyond that, compared to him I am a nobody – not even a pygmy. He saw his goal, persisted ceaselessly throughout his life with missionary zeal and transformed the destiny of the Indian Woman. The first university for women in India - The SNDT University and educational institutions for women covering the entire spectrum ranging from pre-primary schools to post-graduate, engineering, vocational and professional colleges bear eloquent testimony to his indomitable spirit, untiring perseverance and determined efforts.
In his preface, Frederick J Gould writes that “the narrative is a parable of his career” – a most apt description of the autobiography. The author tells his life-story in a simple straightforward manner, with remarkable candour and humility; resulting in a narrative which is friendly, interesting and readable. Autobiographies are sometimes voluminous tomes but this a small book, 200 pages, and a very easy comfortable enjoyable read that makes it almost unputdownable.
Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve was born on 18th of April 1958. In the first few chapters he writes about Murud, his native place in Konkan, Maharashtra, his ancestry and his early life– the description is so vivid that you can clearly “see” through the author’s eye. His struggle to appear in the public service examination ( walking 110 miles in torrential rain and difficult terrain to Satara), and the shattering disappointment at not being allowed to appear because “he looked too young”, make poignant reading.
“Many undreamt of things have happened in my life and given a different turn to my career” he writes, and then goes on to describe his high school and, later, college education at The Wilson College Bombay (Mumbai) narrating various incidents that convinced him of the role of destiny and serendipity in shaping his life and career as a teacher and then Professor of Mathematics.
He married at the age of fourteen but began his marital life at the age of twenty! This was the custom of those days. Let’s read the author’s own words on his domestic life: “ … I was married at the age of fourteen and my wife was then eight. Her family lived very near to ours and we knew each other very well and had often played together. However after marriage we had to forget our old relation as playmates and to behave as strangers, often looking toward each other but never standing together to exchange words…. We had to communicate with each other through my sister…… My marital life began under the parental roof at Murud when I was twenty…” Their domestic bliss was short lived as his wife died after a few years leaving behind a son… “Thus ended the first part of my domestic life”… he concludes.
An incident highlighting the plight of a widow left an indelible impression on him and germinated in him the idea of widow remarriage. He married Godubai, who was widowed when she was only eight years old, was a sister of his friend Mr. Joshi, and now twenty three was studying at Pandita Ramabai’s Sharada Sadan as its first widow student . Let’s read in the author’s own words how he asked for her hand in marriage to her father – “ I told him…..I had made up my mind to marry a widow. He sat silent for a minute and then hinted that there was no need to go in search of such a bride”.
He describes in detail the ostracism he faced from some orthodox quarters and systematically enunciates his life work - his organization of the Widow Marriage Association, Hindu Widows Home, Mahila Vidyalaya, Nishkama Karma Math, and other institutions, culminating in the birth of the first Indian Women’s University ( SNDT University). The trials and tribulations he faced in his life-work of emancipation of education of women (widows in particular) and how he overcame them by his persistent steadfast endeavours and indomitable spirit makes illuminating reading and underlines the fact that Dr. DK Karve was no arm-chair social reformer but a person devoted to achieve his dreams on the ground in reality. These chapters form the meat of the book and make compelling reading. ( His dedication and meticulousness is evident in the appendices where he has given datewise details of his engagements and subscriptions down to the paisa for his educational institutions from various places he visited around the world to propagate their cause).
He then describes his world tour, at 71, to meet eminent educationists to propagate the cause of the Women’s University, his later domestic life and ends with a few of his views and ideas for posterity. At the end he writes: “ Here ends the story of my life. I hope this simple story will serve some useful purpose”.
He wrote this in 1936. He lived till the 9th of November 1962, achieving so much more on the way, was conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters ( D.Litt.) by the Banaras Hindu University in 1942 followed by Poona in 1951, SNDT in 1955, and Bombay(LL.D.) in 1957. Maharshi Karve received the Padma Vibhushan in 1955 and the nation’s highest honour the “Bharat Ratna” in 1958, a fitting tribute at the age of 100.
Epilogue
I was born in 1956, and have fleeting memories of Maharshi Karve, during our visits to Hingne in 1961-62, as a small boy of 5 or 6 can. I have written this book review with the hope that some of us, particularly students of SNDT, Cummins College of Engineering for Women, SOFT, Karve Institute of Social Sciences and other educational institutions related to Maharshi Karve, read about his stellar pioneering work and draw inspiration from his autobiography.
Two other good books pertaining to the life of Maharshi Karve which I have read are : Maharshi Karve by Ganesh L. Chandavarkar, Popular Prakashan (1958) and Maharshi Karve – His 105 years, Hingne Stree Shikshan Samstha (1963).
VIKRAM WAMAN KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The Art of Eating Green Chilli Ice Cream by Vikram Karve
THE ART OF EATING GREEN CHILLI ICE CREAM
by
VIKRAM KARVE
I’ve just relished a bowl of “green chilli ice cream” and the zestful taste still lingers on my tongue. Never before had I enjoyed eating ice cream so much. It was indeed a unique gustatory experience. Let me tell you about it.
I love ice cream. Today morning a friend of mine told me that there is a place opposite the Mumbai Chowpatty Sea Face that serves “green chilli” ice cream. I didn’t believe him. I have savored myriad flavours of ice cream but “green chilli ice cream” seemed a bit far fetched. On questioning, my friend confessed that he had only heard about it, not eaten it himself.
The very concept of green chilli ice cream whetted my curiosity so much that at sunset I was standing in front of Bachelorr’s ( that’s the spelling on the menu card) Ice Cream and Juice Stall, my appetite fully stimulated by a long brisk walk.
It was there on the menu card – Green Chilli Ice Cream. I ordered it and walked with the bowl to a lonely bench nearby to enjoy the eating experience in glorious solitude.
The ice cream looks a creamy pink ( not chilli green as I had expected it to be). I close my eyes and smell the ice cream – a nice sweet milky fragrance, a bit fruity; certainly no trace of the piquant penetrating sting of chillies. I spoon a bit on my tongue. My taste buds are smothered by a sweet mellifluous sensation as the cold creamy ice cream starts melting on my tongue. I am disappointed, feel conned – it seems it was just hype. This is run of the mill stuff. Or is it? Wait a moment. As the ice cream melts away I suddenly feel a sharp piercing fiery taste that sizzles my tongue, stings through my nose and penetrates my brain. My tongue is on fire and, like instant firefighting, I instinctively spoon a blob of ice cream onto my tongue. The cool ice cream quenches my burning tongue with its almost ambrosial taste but the moment it melts away I am zipped like a rocket with the sharp punch of the green chillies.
So that was the art of eating green chilli ice cream. Hot and cold. Burn and quench. Sting and soothe. Contrasting sensations. Like alternating current. Sharp tangy kicks burning through the cool syrupy sweetness till your system is fully perked up. And a trace of the biting flavour of the green chilli remains within me for a long long time as I walk away.
Green chilli ice cream doesn’t satiate – it excites, gives you a “kick”, zests you up. Try it. And let me know if you liked it.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
by
VIKRAM KARVE
I’ve just relished a bowl of “green chilli ice cream” and the zestful taste still lingers on my tongue. Never before had I enjoyed eating ice cream so much. It was indeed a unique gustatory experience. Let me tell you about it.
I love ice cream. Today morning a friend of mine told me that there is a place opposite the Mumbai Chowpatty Sea Face that serves “green chilli” ice cream. I didn’t believe him. I have savored myriad flavours of ice cream but “green chilli ice cream” seemed a bit far fetched. On questioning, my friend confessed that he had only heard about it, not eaten it himself.
The very concept of green chilli ice cream whetted my curiosity so much that at sunset I was standing in front of Bachelorr’s ( that’s the spelling on the menu card) Ice Cream and Juice Stall, my appetite fully stimulated by a long brisk walk.
It was there on the menu card – Green Chilli Ice Cream. I ordered it and walked with the bowl to a lonely bench nearby to enjoy the eating experience in glorious solitude.
The ice cream looks a creamy pink ( not chilli green as I had expected it to be). I close my eyes and smell the ice cream – a nice sweet milky fragrance, a bit fruity; certainly no trace of the piquant penetrating sting of chillies. I spoon a bit on my tongue. My taste buds are smothered by a sweet mellifluous sensation as the cold creamy ice cream starts melting on my tongue. I am disappointed, feel conned – it seems it was just hype. This is run of the mill stuff. Or is it? Wait a moment. As the ice cream melts away I suddenly feel a sharp piercing fiery taste that sizzles my tongue, stings through my nose and penetrates my brain. My tongue is on fire and, like instant firefighting, I instinctively spoon a blob of ice cream onto my tongue. The cool ice cream quenches my burning tongue with its almost ambrosial taste but the moment it melts away I am zipped like a rocket with the sharp punch of the green chillies.
So that was the art of eating green chilli ice cream. Hot and cold. Burn and quench. Sting and soothe. Contrasting sensations. Like alternating current. Sharp tangy kicks burning through the cool syrupy sweetness till your system is fully perked up. And a trace of the biting flavour of the green chilli remains within me for a long long time as I walk away.
Green chilli ice cream doesn’t satiate – it excites, gives you a “kick”, zests you up. Try it. And let me know if you liked it.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
Monday, January 02, 2006
The Journey (a fiction short story) by Vikram Karve
THE JOURNEY
(a fiction short story)
by
VIKRAM KARVE
The moment I saw the e-mail I did two things. First I took a print-out of the mail and then I booked my ticket on the next flight to India. The e-mail contained a name and an address. That’s all – a name and an address.
I cannot begin to describe the emotion I felt as I looked at the name. I had so many questions to ask him.
It all began when Anil suddenly broke off our engagement.
“Why?” I asked him totally shocked.
“I can’t tell you,” he said.
“You can’t dump me just like this. I’ve done nothing wrong,” I pleaded heartbroken.
“I’m sorry, Rita. I can’t marry you. I don’t want to marry you.”
“You have to give me an explanation. I am not going to accept this.”
“You have to accept it. And don’t delve too much.”
“What do you mean ‘don’t delve too much’, you unscrupulous cheat,” I screamed in anger, taking hold of his collar.
“Cool down,” he said pushing me away. “It’s you who tried to cheat me. You shouldn’t have tried to hide things from me.”
“Hide what ?” I asked.
“That you are an adopted child,” he said.
“I’m not adopted,” I shouted in anger.
“You are.”
“Who told you ?”
“We got some matrimonial enquiries done.”
“You spied on me,” I accused him, “to blackmail me, to humiliate me?”
“Don’t worry, no one else knows. It’s a reliable and discreet investigation agency.”
“It’s not true. I’m not adopted,” I said feeling shattered, numb, as if I had been pole-axed.
“Why don’t you ask your parents ?” Anil said as he walked away from my life.
I never asked my parents. I did not have the heart to. They did not say anything to me but I could see the sadness and a sense of guilt in their eyes, as they withered away having lost the will to live. I felt helpless. They loved me, meant everything to me, and we carried on our lives as if nothing had happened, and I caringly looked after them till their very end; but deep down I felt terribly betrayed.
Years passed. I relocated abroad past and immersed myself in my work. I tried to forget but I could not. One day I could bear it no longer. I decided to find out. And now I had. The investigation agency had done a good job. Confidential and discreet. For the first time I knew the name of my actual father. My biological natural father. And now I had to meet this man and ask him why he did it – abandon me to the world.
I landed at Mumbai airport early in the morning ant it took me three hours by taxi to reach the bungalow in Khandala. I checked the nameplate and briskly walked inside. There was a small crowd gathered in the porch. His lifeless body was lying on a white sheet bedecked with flowers, ready for the last rites. As I looked at his serene face, tears welled in my eyes. Suddenly I lost control of myself and cried uncontrollably, “ I have become an orphan. An orphan !”
“ Me too,” a familiar voice said softly behind me. I turned around and stared into Anil’s eyes. As comprehension began to dawn on me, Anil and I kept looking into each other’s eyes. In silence. A grotesque silence. A deafening silence.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
(a fiction short story)
by
VIKRAM KARVE
The moment I saw the e-mail I did two things. First I took a print-out of the mail and then I booked my ticket on the next flight to India. The e-mail contained a name and an address. That’s all – a name and an address.
I cannot begin to describe the emotion I felt as I looked at the name. I had so many questions to ask him.
It all began when Anil suddenly broke off our engagement.
“Why?” I asked him totally shocked.
“I can’t tell you,” he said.
“You can’t dump me just like this. I’ve done nothing wrong,” I pleaded heartbroken.
“I’m sorry, Rita. I can’t marry you. I don’t want to marry you.”
“You have to give me an explanation. I am not going to accept this.”
“You have to accept it. And don’t delve too much.”
“What do you mean ‘don’t delve too much’, you unscrupulous cheat,” I screamed in anger, taking hold of his collar.
“Cool down,” he said pushing me away. “It’s you who tried to cheat me. You shouldn’t have tried to hide things from me.”
“Hide what ?” I asked.
“That you are an adopted child,” he said.
“I’m not adopted,” I shouted in anger.
“You are.”
“Who told you ?”
“We got some matrimonial enquiries done.”
“You spied on me,” I accused him, “to blackmail me, to humiliate me?”
“Don’t worry, no one else knows. It’s a reliable and discreet investigation agency.”
“It’s not true. I’m not adopted,” I said feeling shattered, numb, as if I had been pole-axed.
“Why don’t you ask your parents ?” Anil said as he walked away from my life.
I never asked my parents. I did not have the heart to. They did not say anything to me but I could see the sadness and a sense of guilt in their eyes, as they withered away having lost the will to live. I felt helpless. They loved me, meant everything to me, and we carried on our lives as if nothing had happened, and I caringly looked after them till their very end; but deep down I felt terribly betrayed.
Years passed. I relocated abroad past and immersed myself in my work. I tried to forget but I could not. One day I could bear it no longer. I decided to find out. And now I had. The investigation agency had done a good job. Confidential and discreet. For the first time I knew the name of my actual father. My biological natural father. And now I had to meet this man and ask him why he did it – abandon me to the world.
I landed at Mumbai airport early in the morning ant it took me three hours by taxi to reach the bungalow in Khandala. I checked the nameplate and briskly walked inside. There was a small crowd gathered in the porch. His lifeless body was lying on a white sheet bedecked with flowers, ready for the last rites. As I looked at his serene face, tears welled in my eyes. Suddenly I lost control of myself and cried uncontrollably, “ I have become an orphan. An orphan !”
“ Me too,” a familiar voice said softly behind me. I turned around and stared into Anil’s eyes. As comprehension began to dawn on me, Anil and I kept looking into each other’s eyes. In silence. A grotesque silence. A deafening silence.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
Friday, December 23, 2005
My favourite food and where I eat it
MY FAVOURITE FOOD AND WHERE I EAT IT
By
Vikram Karve
I love good food. And I love walking around searching for good food ( food walks I call them). Let me share with you, dear fellow foodie, some of my favourite eateries. Most of them are in South Mumbai, where I live, a few (where mentioned) are in Pune which is my home town which I visit quite often. Read on. It’s my very own Vikram Karve’s Value For Money Good Food Guide. I’ve walked there and eaten there. It’s a totally random compilation as I write as I remember and I may have missed out some of my favourites but I’ll add them on as and when memory jogs me and also keep adding new places I discover during my food walks. Try some places and let me know whether you liked it.
Vada Pav - CTO Vada Pav (Ashok Satam’s Stall) alongside the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) at Flora Fountain ( Hutatma Chowk). Or at Sahaydri at Churchgate.
Misal Pav – Vinay in Girgaum . Walk down Marine Drive, cross the road near Taraporewala Aquarium, take the lane between Kaivalyadhama Yoga Centre and Ladies Hostel ( it’s called Income Tax Lane), cross the railway overbridge, walk straight on Thakurdwar Road, cross Girgaum (JSS) Road, walk a bit and Vinay is to your right.
Kheema Pav – Stadium. Next to Churchgate Station. Kyani at Dhobi Talao.
Seekh Kebabs – Ayubs ( Chotte Mian ). Take the lane to the left of Rhythm House Music Store at Kalaghoda and let your nose guide you.
Jeera Butter – Ideal Bakery. Kandewadi, Girgaum. And try the sugarcane juice at Rasvanti next door.
Chicken Stew ( Kerala Style),Malabar Paratha and Appams – Fountain Plaza. In the lane off Handloom House. Fort. [ Brings back nostalgic memories of Ceylon Bake House in Ernakulam Kochi (Cochin) ]
Chicken Biryani – Olympia. Colaba Causeway. In Pune it’s Dorabjee & Sons restaurant on Dastur Meher road off Sarbatwala Chowk in Pune Camp.
Mutton Biryani – Shalimar. Bhendi Bazaar. I like the Chicken Chilly Dry too.
Malvani Cuisine – Sachivalaya Gymkhana Canteen. Opposite Mantralaya. Nariman Point. Bombil Fry, Pomfret masala, Kombdi (Chicken) Vada and Lunch Thali.
Gomantak Cuisine - Sandeep Gomantak. Bazargate Street. Fort.
Chiken Masala and Khaboosh Roti – Baghdadi. Near Regal. Off Colaba Causeway.
Nihari – Jaffer Bhai’s Delhi Darbar. Near Metro.
Nalli Nihari – Noor Mohammadi. Bhendi Bazaar.
Berry Pulao – Brittania. Ballard Estate.
Puri Bhaji – Pancham Puriwala. Bazargate street. Opposite CST Station (VT).
Kolhapuri Cuisine – I go to ‘Purepur Kolhapur’ at Peru Gate Sadashiv Peth in Pune for authentic Kolhapuri Pandhra Rassa, Tambda Rassa and Kheema vati. In Kolhapur it’s Opal.
Gulab Jamun – Kailash Parbat. 1st Pasta Lane. Colaba Causeway.
Rasgulla – Bhaishankar Gaurishankar. CP Tank.
Khichdi – Khichdi Samrat. VP Road. CP Tank.
Vegetarian Thali and Chaas(buttermilk) – Bhagat Tarachand. Mumbadevi. Zaveri Bazar.
Navrattan Kurma – Vihar. JT Road. Churchgate.
Veg Burger and Chicken Cafreal Croissant – Croissants. Churchgate.
Tea while browsing books – Cha-Bar. Oxford Bookstore. Churchgate.
Just a refreshing cup of Tea – Stadium. Churchgate.
Ice Cream – Rustom. Churchgate.
Pav Bhaji – Lenin Pav Bhaji Stall. Khau Galli. New Marine Lines. Near SNDT.
Jalebi – Pancharatna Jalebi House. Near Roxy. Opera House.
Milk Shakes, Juices and uniquely flavored ice creams – Bachelor. Opposite Chowpatty.
Stuffed Parathas – Samovar. Jehangir Art Gallery.
Stuffed Omlettes and Steaks – Churchill. Colaba Causeway.
Sea food – Anant Ashram. Khotachiwadi. Girgaum.
Apple Pie and Ginger Biscuits – Yazdani Bakery. Cawasji Patel Street. Between PM Road and Veer Nariman Road. Fort.
Cakes – Sassanian Boulangerie. 1st Marine Street. Near Metro.
Buns, Breads and Pastries – Gaylord Bake Shop. Churchgate.
Falooda – Badshah. Crawford Market.
Curds – Parsi dairy. Princess Street.
Sandwiches – Marz-o-rin. Main Street. MG Road. Pune.
Chole Bhature – Monafood. Main Street. Pune.
Shrewsbury Biscuits – Kayani Bakery. East Street. Pune.
The mere thought of Shrewsbury biscuits evokes in me a sensation I cannot describe. I am feeling nostalgic and am off to Pune - for Shrewsbury at Kayani, wafers at Budhani, Sev Barfi at Bhavnagri, Amba Barfi and Bakarwadi at Chitale, Biryani and Dhansak at Dorabjee, Misal at Ramnath, Sizzlers at The Place, Pandhra Rassa at Purepur Kolhapur, Mango Ice Cream at Ganu Shinde, Mastani at Kavare, Bhel at Saras Baug and on the banks of Khadakvasla lake, Pithla Bhakri, Kanda Bhaji and tak on top of Sinhagarh Fort, Chinese at Kamling ( Oh no. Sadly it’s closed down so I’ll go across to the end of East Street to the East End Chinese takeaway next to Burger King).
And guess what? The moment I reach Pune, I’ll walk across the station and enjoy a refreshing Lassi at Shiv Kailas. And then walk down in the hot sun to Main Street. One thing I’ll miss is the non-veg samosas at erstwhile Naaz on the West End corner at the entrance to Main Street. The good old Naaz and Kamling are two places I really miss.
See you then. It’s one in the afternoon and I’m hungry. I’m going out for lunch – guess where !
Dear fellow foodies. Please do send in your comments so I can keep updating.
Happy Eating ! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
By
Vikram Karve
I love good food. And I love walking around searching for good food ( food walks I call them). Let me share with you, dear fellow foodie, some of my favourite eateries. Most of them are in South Mumbai, where I live, a few (where mentioned) are in Pune which is my home town which I visit quite often. Read on. It’s my very own Vikram Karve’s Value For Money Good Food Guide. I’ve walked there and eaten there. It’s a totally random compilation as I write as I remember and I may have missed out some of my favourites but I’ll add them on as and when memory jogs me and also keep adding new places I discover during my food walks. Try some places and let me know whether you liked it.
Vada Pav - CTO Vada Pav (Ashok Satam’s Stall) alongside the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) at Flora Fountain ( Hutatma Chowk). Or at Sahaydri at Churchgate.
Misal Pav – Vinay in Girgaum . Walk down Marine Drive, cross the road near Taraporewala Aquarium, take the lane between Kaivalyadhama Yoga Centre and Ladies Hostel ( it’s called Income Tax Lane), cross the railway overbridge, walk straight on Thakurdwar Road, cross Girgaum (JSS) Road, walk a bit and Vinay is to your right.
Kheema Pav – Stadium. Next to Churchgate Station. Kyani at Dhobi Talao.
Seekh Kebabs – Ayubs ( Chotte Mian ). Take the lane to the left of Rhythm House Music Store at Kalaghoda and let your nose guide you.
Jeera Butter – Ideal Bakery. Kandewadi, Girgaum. And try the sugarcane juice at Rasvanti next door.
Chicken Stew ( Kerala Style),Malabar Paratha and Appams – Fountain Plaza. In the lane off Handloom House. Fort. [ Brings back nostalgic memories of Ceylon Bake House in Ernakulam Kochi (Cochin) ]
Chicken Biryani – Olympia. Colaba Causeway. In Pune it’s Dorabjee & Sons restaurant on Dastur Meher road off Sarbatwala Chowk in Pune Camp.
Mutton Biryani – Shalimar. Bhendi Bazaar. I like the Chicken Chilly Dry too.
Malvani Cuisine – Sachivalaya Gymkhana Canteen. Opposite Mantralaya. Nariman Point. Bombil Fry, Pomfret masala, Kombdi (Chicken) Vada and Lunch Thali.
Gomantak Cuisine - Sandeep Gomantak. Bazargate Street. Fort.
Chiken Masala and Khaboosh Roti – Baghdadi. Near Regal. Off Colaba Causeway.
Nihari – Jaffer Bhai’s Delhi Darbar. Near Metro.
Nalli Nihari – Noor Mohammadi. Bhendi Bazaar.
Berry Pulao – Brittania. Ballard Estate.
Puri Bhaji – Pancham Puriwala. Bazargate street. Opposite CST Station (VT).
Kolhapuri Cuisine – I go to ‘Purepur Kolhapur’ at Peru Gate Sadashiv Peth in Pune for authentic Kolhapuri Pandhra Rassa, Tambda Rassa and Kheema vati. In Kolhapur it’s Opal.
Gulab Jamun – Kailash Parbat. 1st Pasta Lane. Colaba Causeway.
Rasgulla – Bhaishankar Gaurishankar. CP Tank.
Khichdi – Khichdi Samrat. VP Road. CP Tank.
Vegetarian Thali and Chaas(buttermilk) – Bhagat Tarachand. Mumbadevi. Zaveri Bazar.
Navrattan Kurma – Vihar. JT Road. Churchgate.
Veg Burger and Chicken Cafreal Croissant – Croissants. Churchgate.
Tea while browsing books – Cha-Bar. Oxford Bookstore. Churchgate.
Just a refreshing cup of Tea – Stadium. Churchgate.
Ice Cream – Rustom. Churchgate.
Pav Bhaji – Lenin Pav Bhaji Stall. Khau Galli. New Marine Lines. Near SNDT.
Jalebi – Pancharatna Jalebi House. Near Roxy. Opera House.
Milk Shakes, Juices and uniquely flavored ice creams – Bachelor. Opposite Chowpatty.
Stuffed Parathas – Samovar. Jehangir Art Gallery.
Stuffed Omlettes and Steaks – Churchill. Colaba Causeway.
Sea food – Anant Ashram. Khotachiwadi. Girgaum.
Apple Pie and Ginger Biscuits – Yazdani Bakery. Cawasji Patel Street. Between PM Road and Veer Nariman Road. Fort.
Cakes – Sassanian Boulangerie. 1st Marine Street. Near Metro.
Buns, Breads and Pastries – Gaylord Bake Shop. Churchgate.
Falooda – Badshah. Crawford Market.
Curds – Parsi dairy. Princess Street.
Sandwiches – Marz-o-rin. Main Street. MG Road. Pune.
Chole Bhature – Monafood. Main Street. Pune.
Shrewsbury Biscuits – Kayani Bakery. East Street. Pune.
The mere thought of Shrewsbury biscuits evokes in me a sensation I cannot describe. I am feeling nostalgic and am off to Pune - for Shrewsbury at Kayani, wafers at Budhani, Sev Barfi at Bhavnagri, Amba Barfi and Bakarwadi at Chitale, Biryani and Dhansak at Dorabjee, Misal at Ramnath, Sizzlers at The Place, Pandhra Rassa at Purepur Kolhapur, Mango Ice Cream at Ganu Shinde, Mastani at Kavare, Bhel at Saras Baug and on the banks of Khadakvasla lake, Pithla Bhakri, Kanda Bhaji and tak on top of Sinhagarh Fort, Chinese at Kamling ( Oh no. Sadly it’s closed down so I’ll go across to the end of East Street to the East End Chinese takeaway next to Burger King).
And guess what? The moment I reach Pune, I’ll walk across the station and enjoy a refreshing Lassi at Shiv Kailas. And then walk down in the hot sun to Main Street. One thing I’ll miss is the non-veg samosas at erstwhile Naaz on the West End corner at the entrance to Main Street. The good old Naaz and Kamling are two places I really miss.
See you then. It’s one in the afternoon and I’m hungry. I’m going out for lunch – guess where !
Dear fellow foodies. Please do send in your comments so I can keep updating.
Happy Eating ! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
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