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...John Howard Payne
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This morning my son and I walked into a Nationalized Bank to ask if any lockers are available there. And the Manager who has his cubicle right by the side of the entrance asked us to come in and please be seated...insisting repeatedly. That is one good thing that happened after Private Banks started mushrooming here. During my time half a century ago, the same Govt Bank Manager would be unapproachable and would bark:
"What do you want?"
as if he were doing his customers a favor. Now, his job and promotion and transfers to wilderness depend on the Deposits he shows and the Customer Feedback he gets.
And we sat, I silent as usual. The first question the chap asked my son was:
"Which is your native place?"
That is a question that baffles my son. He was born in Jalgaon (Maharashtra), brought up for 24 years at KGP (Bengal), and has been working in Hyderabad the past 8 years. While Hyderabad is currently the Apple of Discord, but still in AP, he can't read or write Telugu. So, he mumbled:
"Bengal...Hyderabad"
Many commoners here ask me the same question. And I say:
"Calcutta"
loudly since few of them have heard of KGP.
Middle-Class India is in an unprecedented flux. And few of my son's generation can boast of a Native Place and a Home Town.
This was not so in my Father's generation. He would proudly say:
"Nellore District...Krishnapatnam"
His father had landed property there and an ancestral home...both gone with the winds of change. And he himself never worked outside Nellore District and bought a house at Gudur (Nellore Dt), retired, stayed, and died there after 25 happy years. When he was shifted for a few days to his youngest daughter's place not far away from his Home Sweet Home for treatment of an ailment, he was pining to get back to his Gudur Home. And when his darling daughter asked him:
"Is this not your home?"
he replied:
"How can it be? This is your home!"
And my mom (90) has by now lived in her Gudur Home for 40 odd years and she is even more stubborn...though her Home is hot as hell, can't be Air-Conditioned, has 6-hour power outage, erratic water supply, full of mosquitoes, and open drains all over the town. Whenever she has to visit one of her offspring's place for a few days, she has this pins-and-needles sensation.
When asked what is that she has in her Home which other more luxurious places lack, she says:
"Freedom"
RKN surely regarded Mysore (Malgudi) his home though he had another in Madras.
C. Rajagopalachari (the last Governor-General of India, also Governor of Bengal), refused to travel abroad from his Home in Madras saying that crossing the seas is taboo in the Hindu religion, and said:
"Why should I go abroad? I am always available here"
He did, though, much later, and after returning did Prayashchitta (ceremonial purification).
Nehru, although from Allahabad, never forgot that he was a Kashmiri Pundit. And was proud of it. Even his daughter, Indira, is said to have longed for Kashmir every Fall, saying:
"Chinar leaves must be turning golden brown now"
...Posted by Ishani
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'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain;
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gayly, that come at my call --
Give me them -- and the peace of mind, dearer than all!
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain;
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gayly, that come at my call --
Give me them -- and the peace of mind, dearer than all!
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
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This morning my son and I walked into a Nationalized Bank to ask if any lockers are available there. And the Manager who has his cubicle right by the side of the entrance asked us to come in and please be seated...insisting repeatedly. That is one good thing that happened after Private Banks started mushrooming here. During my time half a century ago, the same Govt Bank Manager would be unapproachable and would bark:
"What do you want?"
as if he were doing his customers a favor. Now, his job and promotion and transfers to wilderness depend on the Deposits he shows and the Customer Feedback he gets.
And we sat, I silent as usual. The first question the chap asked my son was:
"Which is your native place?"
That is a question that baffles my son. He was born in Jalgaon (Maharashtra), brought up for 24 years at KGP (Bengal), and has been working in Hyderabad the past 8 years. While Hyderabad is currently the Apple of Discord, but still in AP, he can't read or write Telugu. So, he mumbled:
"Bengal...Hyderabad"
Many commoners here ask me the same question. And I say:
"Calcutta"
loudly since few of them have heard of KGP.
Middle-Class India is in an unprecedented flux. And few of my son's generation can boast of a Native Place and a Home Town.
This was not so in my Father's generation. He would proudly say:
"Nellore District...Krishnapatnam"
His father had landed property there and an ancestral home...both gone with the winds of change. And he himself never worked outside Nellore District and bought a house at Gudur (Nellore Dt), retired, stayed, and died there after 25 happy years. When he was shifted for a few days to his youngest daughter's place not far away from his Home Sweet Home for treatment of an ailment, he was pining to get back to his Gudur Home. And when his darling daughter asked him:
"Is this not your home?"
he replied:
"How can it be? This is your home!"
And my mom (90) has by now lived in her Gudur Home for 40 odd years and she is even more stubborn...though her Home is hot as hell, can't be Air-Conditioned, has 6-hour power outage, erratic water supply, full of mosquitoes, and open drains all over the town. Whenever she has to visit one of her offspring's place for a few days, she has this pins-and-needles sensation.
When asked what is that she has in her Home which other more luxurious places lack, she says:
"Freedom"
RKN surely regarded Mysore (Malgudi) his home though he had another in Madras.
C. Rajagopalachari (the last Governor-General of India, also Governor of Bengal), refused to travel abroad from his Home in Madras saying that crossing the seas is taboo in the Hindu religion, and said:
"Why should I go abroad? I am always available here"
He did, though, much later, and after returning did Prayashchitta (ceremonial purification).
Nehru, although from Allahabad, never forgot that he was a Kashmiri Pundit. And was proud of it. Even his daughter, Indira, is said to have longed for Kashmir every Fall, saying:
"Chinar leaves must be turning golden brown now"
Displaced and evicted persons surely miss heir homelands. My Guide, SDM, occasionally used to talk about his Home in Sylhet (now in Bangladesh) rapturously and with that hint of childhood nostalgia in his voice.
Mush-Khush took his wife on a 'trip' to the Neherwali Haveli in Delhi (where he was born) after his Agra Summit failed miserably. Our Raambhakt Supremo felt so nostalgic about his Karachi Home that he was reprimanded by the High Command. Even our mild-mannered Sardarjee has a soft corner for Gah (now in Pakistani Punjab).
I traveled all the way to my reported place of birth, a small town called Razole in the idyllic Konaseema in the Godavari Delta, and felt pseudo-nostalgic.
Late one night, four of us were chatting on the lawns of the Nalanda House at IIT Delhi in 1986. Professor N. Kumar (now Padma Shri) narrated to us an incident when the Ma'am behind the Canadian Visa Counter challenged him to prove that he would return to India after the Conference and not overstay there. And he snubbed her:
"Why should I overstay in Canada? Even the very sky there is different from my Bangalore"
In 1980, DB was sponsored for a 1-year Fellowship to Mexico (those were the Mexican Oil Boom Years). He had to sign an agreement that he would return to IIT KGP on dot after one year...not a day before nor after (I was the surety for him). The deal was very attractive since he got his full salary from IIT KGP and fabulous money from the Mexican Govt that eventually fetched him his Home in Calcutta. Six months after he stayed there, his host left Mexico on a sabbatical leave and DB was left high and dry, stopped eating, fell homesick, and was breaking down. The Ambassador in Mexico was kind to him and advised him not to run away back home but made arrangements to fly Mrs DB and their 6-year-old daughter Dola over to Mexico.
DB told me that when their plane landed back on the tarmac in Cal, Dola, a silent kid, exulted:
"Bechey gaychi baba!" ("Got our life back!")
Kids can be very expressive. A few days back, my D-i-L was going to her Home Town (Nellore) on a ten-day holiday and took Ishani along, naturally. Apparently, Ishani was all enthu for 3 days, but from the 4th day onwards she was asking her mom to return, just now, to Hyderabad where her Dad is there and whom she was missing badly.
Here is the best way to travel, sliding with one's own home on his back:
...Posted by Ishani
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