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It is that time of the year when jingle bells jingle all the way.
And I recall the sound of bells I had heard in my impressionable years, with a plethora of associations.
The earliest bells I heard on a regular basis were from the Puja Room of my mom in the 1940s. Every household in the Brahmin Street of our Village had an alcove reserved for their fondest gods and goddesses; some tiny, some huge, and others just a recess in the wall. They all had an idol or two of their family deities... a hundred variations.
But an indispensable bell, and a lamp for aarti.
I am no Salvdor Dali to boast that I can recall my days and nights in the womb, but everything that happened from my age of 2 when my first younger sister was born left a hazy imprint on my memory alright.
The earliest is of my Father leaving everything he was doing and rushing to his bath as soon as the first bell of my mom's Puja rang. By the time the second went off a few minutes later, he was seated on his flat-stool and making a pretense of his Gayatri Jap. The third bell meant that food is coming, after it has been successfully offered to my mom's God...just in time for the first bell of my Father's school to go off a couple of hundred meters away.
The Puja Bell was, is, and remains, a tiny affair...Ishani has her own now and participates in her mom's puja, jingling it as best as she can with her tiny hands awkwardly.
One day when I was about 3, there was this solemn and sorrowful tung tung tung of a circular bell accompanied by a terrifying boom boom boom of a huge conch approaching from afar.
My mom, like all other moms, rushed into the street and pulled her kids in and bolted our front door. And was peering through her front windows. And all of us kids peeped. And then there was this cot being carried by four and followed by ten and led by the bell-ringer and the conch-blower.
Kids are curious since they have no fear of death as yet...
The best bells were of course of our school. There was this massive yard-long rail hung from the low branch of the neem tree near the HM's Office. And a hammer that was always in the custody of his Peon who had a way with it.
He would emerge from the Office with his hammer in his proud hands and have a go at it. First Bell was long...it could be heard from all corners of our tiny village. After a couple of minutes was the Second Bell asking all students to file in front of the Office for the Assembly. The third was to announce to the HM that all was ready for his speech following the flag-hoisting that was a touch and go affair.
And then just one bell for each period. And after three periods, the short bell for recess...we used to call it the Interbell. All boys used to rush out and run to the nearest bush, jumping the fence. I often wondered how the girls could do without it. And then after a few more periods, the Long Bell went off asking every kid to rush out and run home...
To return by the Lunch Bell...
By my age of 14, Father moved as HM to Kovur, a small town that boasted a Railway Station. I was by then in my university at Vizagh and was visiting home only during vacations. Since I had no friend in the new town, I used to walk down to the Railway Station and spend my time there sitting under the shade of a neem tree on a cement bench.
There were only four or five trains that used to halt at that station; but their arrival was as eventful as that of a Maharaja on his palanquin.
Suddenly the Railwayman would emerge from nowhere and have a go at his gong heralding the arrival of the Madras-Vijayawada Passenger...and eventually its departure...2 bells meant a Down Train, 3 an Up Train (or is it the other way round?)
And to this day this Up and Down of the Indian Railways remains a mystery shrouded in smoke...what is up became a down half way up (or down).
The romance of the sooty steam engine and its openness will haunt me forever...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQnjHzgnixs
and my Satyajit Ray Gen (1955)...
http://rasch187.videosift.com/video/Satyajit-Ray-Pather-Panchali-Train-Scene-1955
...Posted by Ishani
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It is that time of the year when jingle bells jingle all the way.
And I recall the sound of bells I had heard in my impressionable years, with a plethora of associations.
The earliest bells I heard on a regular basis were from the Puja Room of my mom in the 1940s. Every household in the Brahmin Street of our Village had an alcove reserved for their fondest gods and goddesses; some tiny, some huge, and others just a recess in the wall. They all had an idol or two of their family deities... a hundred variations.
But an indispensable bell, and a lamp for aarti.
I am no Salvdor Dali to boast that I can recall my days and nights in the womb, but everything that happened from my age of 2 when my first younger sister was born left a hazy imprint on my memory alright.
The earliest is of my Father leaving everything he was doing and rushing to his bath as soon as the first bell of my mom's Puja rang. By the time the second went off a few minutes later, he was seated on his flat-stool and making a pretense of his Gayatri Jap. The third bell meant that food is coming, after it has been successfully offered to my mom's God...just in time for the first bell of my Father's school to go off a couple of hundred meters away.
The Puja Bell was, is, and remains, a tiny affair...Ishani has her own now and participates in her mom's puja, jingling it as best as she can with her tiny hands awkwardly.
One day when I was about 3, there was this solemn and sorrowful tung tung tung of a circular bell accompanied by a terrifying boom boom boom of a huge conch approaching from afar.
My mom, like all other moms, rushed into the street and pulled her kids in and bolted our front door. And was peering through her front windows. And all of us kids peeped. And then there was this cot being carried by four and followed by ten and led by the bell-ringer and the conch-blower.
Kids are curious since they have no fear of death as yet...
The best bells were of course of our school. There was this massive yard-long rail hung from the low branch of the neem tree near the HM's Office. And a hammer that was always in the custody of his Peon who had a way with it.
He would emerge from the Office with his hammer in his proud hands and have a go at it. First Bell was long...it could be heard from all corners of our tiny village. After a couple of minutes was the Second Bell asking all students to file in front of the Office for the Assembly. The third was to announce to the HM that all was ready for his speech following the flag-hoisting that was a touch and go affair.
And then just one bell for each period. And after three periods, the short bell for recess...we used to call it the Interbell. All boys used to rush out and run to the nearest bush, jumping the fence. I often wondered how the girls could do without it. And then after a few more periods, the Long Bell went off asking every kid to rush out and run home...
To return by the Lunch Bell...
By my age of 14, Father moved as HM to Kovur, a small town that boasted a Railway Station. I was by then in my university at Vizagh and was visiting home only during vacations. Since I had no friend in the new town, I used to walk down to the Railway Station and spend my time there sitting under the shade of a neem tree on a cement bench.
There were only four or five trains that used to halt at that station; but their arrival was as eventful as that of a Maharaja on his palanquin.
Suddenly the Railwayman would emerge from nowhere and have a go at his gong heralding the arrival of the Madras-Vijayawada Passenger...and eventually its departure...2 bells meant a Down Train, 3 an Up Train (or is it the other way round?)
And to this day this Up and Down of the Indian Railways remains a mystery shrouded in smoke...what is up became a down half way up (or down).
The romance of the sooty steam engine and its openness will haunt me forever...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQnjHzgnixs
and my Satyajit Ray Gen (1955)...
http://rasch187.videosift.com/video/Satyajit-Ray-Pather-Panchali-Train-Scene-1955
...Posted by Ishani
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