A Cot and Two Pelmets

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I never bought a regular cot for my own use. But I once did get two fake pelmets made though.

My father was born in 1914 at the beginning of the First World War. That was about the time Gandhiji returned from South Africa where he read the British Psyche aright and was honing his wily non-violence weapon.

And I was born in 1943 during the peak of the Second World War when the tide was turning against the Axis Powers and Rommel was roundly and squarely beaten by Monty at El Alamein. And the wily Gandhiji said to himself: "Why waste our ammunition against the British...let Hitlerji and Mussoji and Tojoji pull our chestnuts out of their fire," and bargained hard with the British for our 'support', all the while shouting: "Quit India!" and winking at our sporadic violence.

(All that bakwas was like setting the stage for this piece, with some Obiter Dicta as Pratik-sir calls them...I had heard of obiter dicta before but had to look up Webster)

What I wanted to say was that during all those World War Decades and more, none of the kids nor the women of our joint families ever had the luxury of sleeping on cots. Imagine a tiny hall of say 24' x 12' accommodating 15 cots...impossible. There was but just one cot, if the Head of the Family was lucky enough to get one as his dowry (my Father was lucky). My Father's cot was not a double-cot nor a single one...it was like a 1.25 cot, just about enough for emergencies. Its frame was made of Burma Teak, its designer legs were handmade with several beautiful circular bumps with their Marilyn Monroe-like vital statistics (not the cultivated current zero-size fashion). And it was spanned by an intricate network of Madras Cane so supportive that it didn't need a mattress.

Rest of us happily slept on the stark floor...and exchanged hilarious cock'n'bull stories of the exploits of Tenali Ramakrishna after the hurricane lantern was turned down at 7.30 PM to save kerosene that was as dear as now.

When I joined IIT KGP, I was put up in a single room on the top floor of Gokahle Hall after B C Roy Hall drove me away since I was not an RS but a Faculty. Neither of these halls boasted a ceiling fan, but they gave us the luxury of a steel cot (without a mattress). Steel is supposed to be stronger than Madras Cane (see any Bible of 'Strength of Materials', a fond subject of any engineer); but the Hall Cots those days were warped into such a variety of humps and dumps here and there that trying to sleep on them was like trying to ride a burping camel in a swamp...The Urban Dictionary tells me that a Swamp Camel is a "close cousin of Swamp Donkey; however, the creature has bigger titties on its back than on its chest".

So, I preferred to sleep on the floor that I was used to.

And then I was hounded out of Gokhale Hall since I was not a Teacher Trainee but a Teacher (untrained); and eventually allotted Bachelor Flat 4 / 6, which boasted of mosaic floor, a drawing room and a smaller bedroom. I was a bachelor and obviously didn't need two rooms. Janakiram, an RS in the Chemistry Department was just then driven out of B C Roy, since his schol was over, but not his Ph D. And was looking for digs for the remaining six months of his research work...he told me that he had already taken 165 readings on his set-up out of the default 200 needed for a Ph D...chemistry is a nice subject. So, he approached me to put him up for the next six months...he already had a job offer in Sirpur Kagaznagar...and was in a hurry to submit, unlike me. So, I welcomed him to stay in one of the two rooms of his choice. He said, apologetically, that his dad had booked a single cot for him which would arrive any day from Vizagh...and so he would prefer the bigger room. I said, 'welcome'.

On the first of the next month, he entered my bedroom and offered Rs 40, the house rent that automatically got cut from my meager salary. Apparently that is the default arrangement for a Paying Guest...he has to pay the entire house-rent. And I declined. He then offered Rs 30 for his Drawing Room alone...he must have calculated the percentage floor area; which also I declined as there was a Conduct Rule I signed stating that subletting is a crime that could lead to dismissal from Central Govt Service.

So, at the end of six months, while bidding me a fond Farewell, he forced his cot on me as an in lieu gift. The cot was good-looking but cheap, but I had already decided to shift myself to the Faculty Hostel, which was luxurious and gave a cot, a mattress, a table and a chair, and a sofa and several seasonal beehives as an add-on. And one of my friends sorely needed a cot because he was forced into an even more spacious Qrs against his will. So, the Janakiram Cot (JC) went there.

By and by I got married against my better judgment and was living in the spacious Qrs C-1 / 97 whose drawing room alone could accommodate 25 sleeping kids on its vast floor. Professor NP (and his Mississ) then gifted us two lovely single cots of seasoned Burma Teak made by the famous Jaswant Singh (on which myself and my wife sleep even now). The gift was a loving token of our unbroken friendship of 14 long years (now 47); and two cots meant that they can be drawn in or drawn out depending on the exigencies of marital life...they seem to have had expertise on this subject by then.

By then the JC was being used as a "Rolling Guest Cot" for any rare visitor to any of our circle of friends.

And then I decided (unwisely again) to drape our vast married Hall with heavy Bombay-Dying curtains. They cost so much that little money was left for the regulation teak pelmets and their concealed teak rods. So, I brought in our IIT Carpenter, Ratneswar Das, whose skill in carpentry was second only to mine in plumbing. And he asked me how much was my budget so he can choose the wood accordingly, which happened to be raw and fresh and juicy jamun tree wood. And so, we had Bombay Dying Creme Curtains hanging from jamun rods that got as bent as cantilevers and swung so low from their 'concealing' jamun pelmets that they resembled Ishani's loose panties, rather.

By and by, we shifted to the palatial Qrs B-140 which boasted of a regular Guest Room with an attached bath. NP fished out JC and shifted it to our Guest Room only to discover that the good old cot was bare...the niwar tapes that spanned it were torn so badly that they had to be discarded. But by then the Curtain-Tech got so upgraded that pelmets and concealed rods became redundant.

But NP is a wizard carpentry-cum-electrical-cum-electronics hobbyist with a regular 'basement' workshop in the American mold. So, he took away the useless Ratneswar-Das-Pelmets (RDP), sawed them and refitted them into a nice network of "warp and woof" base for JC...which, with a cotton mattress, was used by many of our guests happily.

The day I retired from IIT KGP and was about to load the truck with all the huge luggage that accrued in 40 years, my Dhobi-Friend Mithai Lal (alias Rasoi Lal) of 40 years vintage arrived, wept like the Walrus in that Alice Poem:

'I weep for you', the Walrus said,
'I deeply sympathise.'
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes

and demanded that I give him the upgraded JC with RDP as a parting memento. Which I did to keep him quiet.

So, goes the story of 'A Cot and Two Pelmets'. Please grade it relative to RKN's 'A Horse and Two Goats' and I would be happy to get a bare pass mark without the need for my beloved SQ.

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