Gole Bazaar 1960s - Waheeda

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We then hit the High Street of Gole Bazaar. Not very high though...it was hardly 100 meters long and a couple of cars wide. If there happened to be a Tata-Mercedes-Benz Truck on it, there would be a terrific traffic jam. These trucks used to come with the world famous three-pointed Benz star header. I used to look at this star transfixed in my childhood Village when I was a school-going kid. The star is supposed to officially symbolize domination of earth, sea and air, but some find in it a voodoo meaning:

http://www.richardcassaro.com/sinister-corporate-symbols

Like for instance the famous shree chakra which is supposed to have a deep hidden meaning.

The first shop that hit you remains the Bhandari Sales Corporation. I was simply scared of it...it was so posh for an urchin like me...glass windows, swivel chairs and somber looking salesmen who I thought would be offended if I peep in. Bhandari was a new title to me. Till then the only non-Andhra title I saw was on Maitrani Brothers at my University Town of Vizagh. That was equally awesome. It was a clothes store that I never dared enter. And folks told me that Maitrani is a Sindhi title. And that all Sindhi titles end with some -ni or the other.

That was a good lesson for me since our eternal PM-aspirant also has a -ni towards his title-tail...and he, I am told, is from the heart of Karachi, which nostalgia gets him into trouble whenever he goes praising the Quaid-e-Azam on foreign soil...folks born in the same town possibly love each other in their heart of hearts...they are mitas like Raj Kapoor and Waheeda Rehman in Teesri Khasam:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU36dHb66Mk

Incidentally Waheeda Rehaman's early appearance in movies was in what we now call an Item Number in a Telugu Movie: Rojulu Marayi when she was just about 18 and I, 12:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50kQAhjkBys

The movie was the first Telugu hit that ran for 100 days and celebrated Shata Dinotsavam in the newly built Venkateswara Hall in Nellore, 12 miles from our Village. Five of us classmates pooled our meager resources and traveled on a double-bullock cart to Nellore and watched the movie from a close hand-shaking distance...the cheapest Floor Ticket @ 0.25 rupees. It was a semi-classical dance item celebrating the short and simple annals of farmers. We were sharing space with a hundred odd farm hands (all male) and all of them went crazy, and at the end of the number, they were whistling and shouting: "Once More! Once More!..." thinking that it was like a theater dance. And the richer of the crowd flung their hard-earned coins on the stage.

And today's ToI reports NaMo's Mia born in Delhi confessing red-facedly in Washington that he has Indian blood in him...he had his schooling in Karachi though...all this reminds me of the thousands of 'elementary' particles being discovered daily in the 1960s...all considered an 'incestuous mess' till the Standard Model reduced their number somewhat...

Coming back to Bhandaris, I gingerly asked Professor B C Basu of AE if Bhandari is a Bengali title. He was shocked and said:

"Are you MAD!"

BCB came from an aristocratic family in Calcutta (he was rumored to be a close nephew of Jyoti-da) and had his schooling and graduation in London. Yet, somehow or the other he was friendly with me (and still is). I was naturally curious about London and England since he was the first person I met who actually set foot in the Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. I asked him what he liked best about Englishmen. He paused for a while since I was perhaps the first person to ask him such a question.

And he said: "Their sense of humor and decency of their commoners".

And he illustrated it by an incident: An Anglo-Saxon lady was visiting London for the first time and boarded a bus. And asked the Caribbean Conductor which is the next stop. He said: Regent Street. The lady was a little dubious and quietly repeated the question to her neighbor and got the same answer.

The Conductor smiled at her and said:

"Now you have it in black and white!"


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