One afternoon, when I was about
eight or nine years old, I came home from school to find a tall, thin young
foreigner chatting with my dad. ‘Chatting’
is possibly the wrong word, for he was listening in a polite, typically
European way with a broad smile on his face.
Dad looked at me, “Do you
remember reading the letter from Robert Smeets?”
I certainly did. The episode had begun with Saro Aunty – my
favourite, lovable Aunt and a gregarious, sociable lady if there ever was one –
meeting Robert at some event or the other. He was a young Dutchman, who had
worked for a bit, saved a modest sum of money and was now travelling around the
World. His stories apparently were
fascinating (she remembers some of them even today, I would imagine). My Uncle and Aunt lived in Sri Lanka at the
time and, if I recall, Robert spent a few days with them. Coming to know of Robert’s plan to visit India from there, my intrepid Aunt suggested that he come over to Digboi and visit and stay with us. Most people will politely thank the other
person for this invitation, promise to do so and then fade away. But Robert was decidedly not like most
people. Shortly thereafter, my parents
received a letter from him, written in a handwriting that can only be described
as a combination of art and geometry – full of angles and stylish twists – that
is characteristic of a European coming to terms with English. With a few carefully spelt words, he invited
himself over and, when the good Aunt followed up with a letter introducing him,
it was an offer Dad and Mum just could not refuse.
So here he was, on a fine day in
the mid 1970s.
He had arrived by train, which
caused no small consternation as no one in our family, in our friends circle,
or their friends circle had ever
travelled by train east of Calcutta, except in a dire emergency such as the 1962
war with China. But, remember, Robert
Smeets was different. He could survive just about anywhere though he didn’t quite
look it: a tall, gangly sort of fellow, with a blond mop of hair on his head, a
slightly loony smile that was perpetually in ‘On’ mode and a soft, genteel
voice that was barely above a whisper.
Yes, Robert Smeets, I will say
again, was not like most people we knew.
For starters, he had hardly any
luggage, which was a matter of endless conversation for a family that
accumulated trunks, hold-alls, suitcases, briefcases, carry bags and picnic
baskets. He then did not seem to see the
need to ever wash clothes and the room he lived in had a most peculiar smell
that got me fascinated and intrigued all at once, and my poor mother driven to
some despair, as the ‘jamadar’, as our sweeper was called, had let it be known
that cleaning this room was way below his dignity of labour. But all was forgiven when, at meal times,
Robert would eat most joyfully, chewing every morsel and enquiring about the
details of the recipe from my mom, prefacing every sentence with a softly
spoken, “Mrs. Vasudevan, could you please….”; indeed, his formality and
insistence on manners was admirable as was his frequent notings in a little
diary that he carried around, reminiscent today of a long-forgotten era.
In those days, Dad had a monthly
free quota of petrol, since he worked in a company that produced petroleum, and
he placed the car at Robert’s command.
But Robert was not interested in the least in using it, choosing to walk
everywhere and chatting with children and adults alike. His handicap of not knowing Hindi did not
seem to deter his communication ability, which was anchored always by a trademark smile
that got most people on his side; undeniably, the fact that he was white helped
too, as Digboi had until the mid 1960s a number of British managers. He caused quite
a stir wherever he went, photographing the vendors around him with his little
black-and-white film camera, or near Charali, the main bazaar where he insisted
on speaking with (and photographing) the beggars in a tone of respect that they
must have found most suspicious.
One can only imagine, forty years
later, the sort of questions he must have faced a thousand times in the
sub-continent. “Why are you travelling
around the World?”, “What do you do in The Netherlands?”, “Are you married?”
(this last question, no doubt, from a suspicious fellow travelling in the same
coupe as Robert, his family in tow), “Why are you not married?”, “Do you have a
girlfriend?”, “Why are you not studying?” and about a hundred others that he
must have, I can surmise, answered in the soft, carefully neutral way that the
liberal Dutch are wont to do.
A few days after Robert’s
arrival, Dad came back home to the news that the chap had been missing all
day. Much ado followed, of course, until
information flowed in that he had walked almost all the way to the next town,
Duliajan, a good twenty five kilometres away. The walk was on a road that cut through a
dense jungle and the threat to anyone from the odd elephant or an opportunistic
robber was omnipresent. Ignorance has
never been more blissful. Dad, if I remember
right, then sent the car to pick him up and Robert spent much of the evening
apologising which my good natured father never felt necessary. Yet, in the eyes
of all in Digboi, Robert was instantly branded a certified nut and I had a
field day, regaling my friends in school with tales of Mr. Smeets.
My post-school life in Digboi was
lonely and I craved for company that only came by when my brothers returned for
their annual vacation. Robert filled in
for the time he was in Digboi, spending some time every day playing with me,
after I got back from school. So, when I
was told after about a couple of weeks that Robert Smeets would be leaving in a
couple of days, it was dismaying to hear.
With a brief handshake and his
smile, Robert left Digboi by train. He
travelled to the North on his way out of India and kept in regular touch with
my Aunt and with Dad and Mom through letters, with a promise of a follow-on
trip. A couple of years later, we heard
that he had married a Sri Lankan, that country having a special place in his large
heart, and had taken up a job in the Netherlands, only to leave it a while
later to go back to his first occupation – travel.
The letters from Robert decreased
over the years. Dad was a legendary
letter-writer, particularly after his retirement, and would persevere with
those who were laggards so Robert continued, perforce, keeping in touch, the intensity of writing
reduced to his annual Christmas card that I awaited eagerly for its unusual
postage stamp. And, then, as his
silouette had faded away from the little town of Digboi, the annual card did
too, in the most unobtrusive way possible.
A few days ago, I thought of him
and decided to use Google to track this chap down, but without success. Who (or What) was Robert Smeets? A post-1960s neat hippie? An
environmentalist? A confused soul rejecting capitalist economics? An
opportunistic wanderer? An itinerant nomad who travelled for its own desultory
joy? Or just another gentle human being attempting
to live life on his own terms?
