Bored?

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1950s Story:

The train halted at Samalkot for a few minutes.

A contingent of a dozen Senior Students in sports outfits clambered and scrambled into the Third Class Carriage noisily with their sports kits on their way to the Grigg's Memorial Finals, and found the Compartment all for themselves but for a Thatha (Old Man) sitting quietly on the bench at one corner.

He was dressed simply in a cotton dhoti and a khadi shirt; fountain pen clamped in his shirt pocket and a Note Book in his cotton sling bag.

The students were as restless as a troop of monkeys on their way to Lanka to battle the Rakshasas of Ravan. They climbed up the upper deck, jumped down, picked mock fights, pulled out their ring ball and played it with all sorts of spins, wobbles and jerks, played badminton of sorts running hither and thither, trooped down at every wayside Station to haggle with vendors of fruits, tease the beggars, sip cups of coffee jointly, climbed back into the coach for further rough & tumble entertainment, singing film songs in unison to drumbeats on the wooden bench; all the time watching curiously the Thatha in his seat with a quiet smile playing on his feeble lips but otherwise lost in thought watching out the window the Passing Show.

At the end of an hour, they saw him prepare to get down at the next Station Rajahmundry, adjusting his sling bag and smoothing his crumpled shirt.

And crowded around him joking: "Thatha! Have a nice time...you must have been pretty bored sitting alone not talking..."

Thatha replied: "No children, it was you who were getting bored not knowing how to beguile time noiselessly...I was busy finding the right end to my short story due to appear in the next Issue of Bharati"

"Oh, you write stories, do you? What is your name?"

"Bhamidipati"

So saying Thatha got down and vanished in the crowd.

The Sportsmen were shocked to know that this is the Bhamidiapati whose story was in their text and appeared in the Half-Yearlies they wrote just a week ago....

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Nowadays I stroll down to Chintalbasti around 10 in the morning to warm myself in the winter chill.

And sit down on the cement roundabout outside the Hanuman Temple. Across the road is the Subjunior Vernacular School. Around this time every day, the Interbell rings and it is great fun to watch the gates open and all kids rush out noisily like so many inmates of the District Jail on Independence Day.

I find two more Thathas like me arrive together at this time with tiffin boxes in their bags and occupy the other end of the bench. They look to be great friends because they joke, argue, laugh, pass comments and enjoy themselves the ten minutes they have to wait for their wards to arrive.

One day after observing me for a week they came down to me and said: "You must be getting bored at home..."

I just smiled and demurred.

How could I tell them that I just found the outline of my day's blog-post: Tenterhooks...or that I have to get going back quickly...Ishani would have had her bath and tiffin and would be looking for her Thatha to play Hide & Seek, Pillow Fight and Horsie Horsie...?

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