***********************************************************************************************************
I was 15 then and just moved into the University town of Vizagh from our village Muthukur. It was a daunting experience...electricity, railway junction, city buses, harbor, oil refinery, and students who looked so well-dressed and well-heeled that I had this terrible inferiority complex that persists...everyone tried their best to speak in fluent English (their own).
It was also the first time I saw a 'pump shoe' with a 'horn', and a tie which my MD Uncle used to sport. My Uncle was a forbidding character and we spoke maybe a 100 sentences with each other over the two years I stayed with him in his house. And I started missing my Father who was like an Oracle to me...whenever I didn't follow anything I would ask him and he would answer to his best.
So, I was taking my evening stroll to recce my locality and found this huge mansion which was reputed to be the home of the leading lawyer of Vizagh. And on his front gate was this sign in stone:
I read it over and over and couldn't figure out its meaning...I still don't...except as a warning that he would sue anyone who peed on his walls.
was the next sign on many otherwise blank walls. "Stick" was ok with me but "bills" was new...perhaps the owner meant: "Don't deface!"...lucky he wasn't in the Bengal of my times during elections...
Much later, after I landed in KGP, I saw this perfectly groomed thin fair Sardarjee going round smiling in Gole Bazaar pedaling his pushbike dressed in pure white and taking and returning salutes from one and all who cared. And there was this placard hanging permanently from his front-basket:
And we used to call him the Naam Japo Sardarjee. I used to tell my friend NP who was accompanying me to Gole Bazaar that whenever I see this instigation-cum- exhortation, I feel like taking out the paper from my pocket and unfolding my own rebuttal:
It turned out the benevolent Sardarjee was the brother of the local MLA and so had good reasons for his short sermon.
This reminds me somehow of the tender plant sprouting everywhere in our Village whose leaves used to curl up when touched. We had several droll local names for it but I was told later that it is called:
*************************************************************************************************************
It was also the first time I saw a 'pump shoe' with a 'horn', and a tie which my MD Uncle used to sport. My Uncle was a forbidding character and we spoke maybe a 100 sentences with each other over the two years I stayed with him in his house. And I started missing my Father who was like an Oracle to me...whenever I didn't follow anything I would ask him and he would answer to his best.
So, I was taking my evening stroll to recce my locality and found this huge mansion which was reputed to be the home of the leading lawyer of Vizagh. And on his front gate was this sign in stone:
"If you have nothing else to do, please don't do it here!"
I read it over and over and couldn't figure out its meaning...I still don't...except as a warning that he would sue anyone who peed on his walls.
"Stick no bills"
was the next sign on many otherwise blank walls. "Stick" was ok with me but "bills" was new...perhaps the owner meant: "Don't deface!"...lucky he wasn't in the Bengal of my times during elections...
Much later, after I landed in KGP, I saw this perfectly groomed thin fair Sardarjee going round smiling in Gole Bazaar pedaling his pushbike dressed in pure white and taking and returning salutes from one and all who cared. And there was this placard hanging permanently from his front-basket:
"Naam Japo!"
"Tum Japo!"
This reminds me somehow of the tender plant sprouting everywhere in our Village whose leaves used to curl up when touched. We had several droll local names for it but I was told later that it is called:
"Touch Me Not!"
Apparently Its official name is: "Mimosa pudica" (I wish I knew some Latin).
I don't know if Google is a blessing or not, but here it is, another well-known pudica:
(noun) - "Venus pudica" is a term used to
describe a classic figural pose in Western art. In this, an unclothed
female (either standing or reclining) keeps one hand covering her
private parts. (She is a modest lass, this Venus.) The resultant pose -
which is not, incidentally, applicable to the male nude - is somewhat
asymmetrical and often serves to draw one's eye to the very spot being
hidden.
The word "pudica" comes to us by way of the Latin "pudendus", which
can mean either external genitalia or shame, or both simultaneously.
Some Greek and Latin there!
*************************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment