My Majorel Uncle

The only doctor I was not scared of, as a child, was Ghai uncle, my best friend, Mintu’s, father and a gentle, mild-mannered man, with heavy specs, a ready smile, easy laugh and a very kind face.  Though he was an ophthalmologist - an apt qualification for one with such benign eyes -  I would refuse to go to any other doctor, and he’d happily treat coughs, colds, stomach upsets and about everything else, at times in that little white room in Digboi hospital, at other times in their home in Muliabari and sometimes over the phone.  In Carmel School, most of the children knew and loved him and he and Baruah uncle, a pediatrician whose son, Sandeep, was my classmate too, were the most popular doctors in that hospital.

I use to fall ill with fever often and Ghai uncle would prescribe Majorel, a little yellow, sugary tablet that was for kids (adults had some horrible stuff called Analgin).  So, of course, I knew him as Majorel uncle.  And he knew me as a finicky, scrawny little fellow who could not stomach good Punjabi food that Aunty made, but would instead yearn for rice, curd and sambar at their dinner table.  

One day, at the age of nine, I had a rather horrific accident while playing football in school and was rushed to the hospital.  There had been blood and flesh, fainting classmates and screaming children, but I did not see the crisis.  After a quick clean up, Dr Sharma (another marvellous doctor, an orthopaedic surgeon) announced to my parents that a surgery was needed, an immediate one at that, but I did make quite a fuss, which, on reflection, must have driven all of them quite nuts.   

Finally, it was time to make a deal with my utterly panic-stricken parents – I would agree to the operation, provided Ghai uncle did it.  

There was hurried, hushed consultation amongst them, a call to Uncle and then my dad announced that, Yes, Ghai uncle would perform this ortho surgery.  As I was being wheeled in, he came up and walked into the theatre alongside me, putting on his mask, above which I saw the kindest eyes in the world.  As the anesthesia took its effect and I blanked out, my last memory was of Uncle standing beside me and holding my right hand with his large, gloved fingers, his cheeks expanded in a broad smile…….and when I came to, many hours later, there he was in the patient room, chatting away with my parents. 

So, obviously I believed that he had done the surgery until Dr Sharma removed my stitches weeks later and presented them to me with panache.  It only strengthened my belief that I would never go to anyone else.  

Three years later – that is forty five years ago - we left Digboi.  I thought of Ghai uncle and his wonderful, warm family on occasion - the odd conversation with someone, a reflection somewhere - but Time does something to you, it takes you away from the important to the urgent, it teases your instinct for fond memory with the present, it prioritises the traffic light over a conversation.  Yes, Time does something to you.....

In 2019, as I was due to travel to Delhi, I thought I'd see him again.  Through friends I got in touch with Rajiv, Ghai uncle's son and learnt that my Majorel Uncle was in the winter of his eventful life, in a world beyond people, pasts and patients.  To not see him now would preserve a sepia image, a script I had had for Life’s journal, a hugged slice of an enchanted past, so, much as I yearned to meet him, I did not do so.  

Thank you, Uncle, for lighting up a thousand lives with those kind eyes.  If compassion is a standard in medicine, you were the best ever.

The Lone Ranger

 Coorg
Feb 15th

A walk-and-jog on a lightly-misty morning in coffee land.  There’s hardly anyone on the road at this hour and, as I pass a labour line, the enticing fragrance of a firewood stove blends with the aroma of mist.  I stop to breathe it in, chat with the devil of a dog hanging around that has strong views on strangers walking by – more so, those that have the temerity to chat with it – and look at the canopy; there are Malabar hornbills, racket-tailed drongos and golden backed woodpeckers that always sound like a fleet of ambulances with their urgent, pitched chatter.  

There are mud roads, leading off the main one, into each plantation and I always stop at their entrance for the depth of view they offer and the possibility of seeing something – or someone – out of the ordinary.
Forty-five minutes later, I stop at one such mud road and stare.  The road leads down to a clearing about a hundred metres away, and I see a dog right there; it is standing sideways and seems to be looking away, but I can’t make much more out (my binocs have been helpfully left behind in the room).  The light mist shrouds the dog’s silhouette in that morning light and lends it a glow, a radiance that makes the ordinary seem gifted.

Or am I wrong? Is this a dog or is it something else?
As I stand there, as still as I possibly can be, it turns its head and sees me.  My pulse rate quickens, for there is now doubt mingled with excitement, anticipation that seeks vindication.  We watch each other for a few moments and then it turns and, with the characteristic trot of the Golden Jackal, vanishes into the coffee bushes.  
Could a morning ever be better?

If there is one animal that deserves a better script for its story, it is the jackal.  From bedtime tales to myth and legend, from farmer’s stories to the powders sold by quacks, jackals were – and are - described as cunning, thieves, dangerous, surreal….and – if some parts of theirs were eaten – medicinal.  These stories were fiction, yet their consequences have been real: an animal on the mud road to certain extinction.  

In Coorg and elsewhere in the southern Western Ghats, the slide to the bottom has had another rapid brutal cause: pesticide usage – a particularly nasty one being Thimet, used in ginger cultivation to kill crabs, which are then consumed by jackals.  

Over the years of travel there, the two questions to those I have met have been: when did you last hear a jackal howl?  ….as a child how often did you hear it?  And in a hundred out of hundred answers, I have sensed loss and foreboding, a sense of the inevitable.

  
I stand there for a moment staring at the now-clear path, hoping that it would return for a final glimpse.  But the jackal knows better.

Yet, we – you and I – can write a new script and tell the tale of a superbly adapted, courageous, gifted, graceful, animal, one that is as crucial for our survival as the tiger or the elephant, for it is a seed-dispenser and keeps the populations of other species (think field mice and wild piglets) in check.  It is a tale for the heart and in the narration of the real story is the redemption from complicity.  
ps: the picture isn’t mine, it’s a Wiki one from Keoladeo, but about sums it u

Hug a Cow? Please tell me How?

The most uplifting item in the news this week is the declaration by the Animal Welfare Board of India that February 14th will henceforth be Cow Hug Day.  During this day, presumably, you must hug a cow (and not the other way around) – one needs lucidity in these crucial matters.    

I had not been a fan of the AWBI, for the notable reason that I did not know that such an august institution existed.  Until today.  Now I am a die-hard supporter of the world’s two most exciting performers (in the following order):
1. AWBI
2. Messi

So, as a loyal fan, I am all prepared for Feb 14th.  There is a minor lingering detail I need clarity on and your vital contributions will hugely help: how does one hug a cow?

I measured my arms this morning and all I can hug is the teddy bear in the loft, which is the fastest known way ever recorded to start sneezing and continue till the anti-histamine takes effect.  So, in the spirit of scientific enquiry, I divided the cow into three parts: the back, the mid-section and the front and did my research.  The summary of my findings are below:
(below here, not below the Cow.  As mentioned earlier, one needs lucidity, and you are clearly inhaling something illegal.)

Let me state this right away – I am now taking the bull by the horns – I refuse to hug the cow at the back and I shant describe this further, despite grave provocation.  You can argue as much as you wish – until the cows come home, to use an udderly disgusting pun - but I know a few, trust me, and they have strong, unequivocal views on strangers hugging them at the rear and will react with alacrity, leaving you either
A) Drenched; or
B) Benched; or
C) Trenched
D) Stenched

If you choose Option B or C (or B+C) above, please travel to cow-hug location in an ambulance (preferably multi-specialty).

I have equally deep-rooted reservations about hugging them in the vicinity of their horns, because cows often mistake humans for flies, in which respect, they bear a spitting resemblance to Stallone in Rambo (there are other notable resemblances to Stallone as well, in voice, dialogue and intelligence quotient, but that is digression.  One needs to report from the drenches.  Sorry, trenches.) 

 
If you insist – despite this hard-working researcher’s dire warnings – on hugging Cow around the neck, please choose the outdoors without a ceiling, because the known record for human- levitation-by-Cow-propulsion is 14 feet and this could be a unique opportunity to beat that.  On landing, you will need to check every one of the 206 bones you have (including those precious few in the cranium that protect the vacuum inside), while the lady continues to observe you with a critical, clearly jaundiced eye.  

That leaves the mid-section.  Now, I am not sure if you have seen a cow ever, but the mid-section houses pretty much all the machinery and prodigious amounts of grass and you will need about fourteen prosthetic arms to get around, with your face right in its midrib (for the record, cows don’t smell of Chanel eau de cologne, not the ones I know).  If there is a calf inside and you go ahead with a hug – prosthetic arms and all – the cow, unless she is fully anaesthetised or listening to Pink Floyd, will treat you to a reverse flick which makes Messi look like a bartender in a cast.  Ambulance recommended.

Now, a final point: if you had thought of giving a rose to a sweet girl on Feb 14th and have now changed your plan and plan to give it to her cow, do quote Amol Palekar in Chitchor and say with feeling, Gori tera gau bada pyaara.

 
…which will be a memorable one-liner, even it will be the only memorable thing you say that day.

When Winter Left The Mist Behind.....

Random Rubble
February 5th 2023

Sometime in the last week, Winter went softly away.  Like a guest who believes that she is overstaying and would like to evade the ensuing argument, Winter eased her way out without a trace, leaving the morning mist in the lap of Spring.  I know that because the silk cotton tree is in leafless bloom, with a large flock of noisy, active rosy starlings helping themselves to the nectar, and a shower of brilliant wine-red flowers on the road; the flowering of silk cotton is the harbinger, the totem that Spring brings along for the short ride of cool, nippy nights and warm days before the heat of summer takes over.

Much as I – and about everyone else – would like Winter to stay on for a wee bit longer, the sunsets of Spring are beautiful and fiery and that is a fine, rich compensation.  To this bounty, add a weekend with a full moon.  I huddle on the terrace under the moonlit sky, basking in celestial company, with moments for desultory thought and just the feeble unmet expectation: will I hear the old eagle owl, with his ‘bubo’ call, or the screech of a barn owl?  Will a rustle in the grass show up a wild boar and her piglets?  Or – ooh la la – my old friend, Colonel Haathi?  This evening, though, is a no-show.  Maybe they have seen me and are waiting.  For, you see, big boys play at night.

The only sound I hear is one of temple drums from a village in the distance but the evening air in the hamlet behind me is silent and sombre: it has been a hard year for the farmers in our parts – the rains were ruinous -  and, of those who planted ragi, some say they will not plant it anymore, at least not for the market, for labour costs, boar and troops of macaques have ravaged the economics of a fine crop, one that is the mainstay of a millet mosaic and in their blood and diet. The price of ragi stalk though – fed to cattle - has risen to the point where it is no longer just a by-product; this year, it will be the only product.  Isn’t that ironical or is it just the norm when things are upside-down?   

And then I think of Kelu, the sagacious Kuruchiyar man from Tirunelli who once grew native varieties of rice. Seven days of sunshine, he had said, and seven mornings of mist were needed to ready the crop.  He stopped growing rice for the same reasons; the loss is as much ours, for his rice came with wisdom.   

So, under this moonlit sky, I think of ragi, bats, economics, stones, charcoal, rice and jackals, all the while wishing I could think of nothing.    It’s past nine and the night is cold now, so did Winter do a rethink and come back for that wee bit longer?  And will She say a Goodbye this time with a hug that will bring a shudder?
…for Gulzar once wrote:
Of the last season, there must be some sign
Some old pain, an old memory
Surely there must be some story?

Some story.