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I was talking of privacy in our Muhukur village in the 'powerless' starry nights in the 1950s when all of us were sleeping on charpais in our front-yards.
There was this curious incident that made headlines one of those days when we were passing through the dark phase of the moon (Krishna Paksham). It was midnight for all I knew...clocks rang no bells...except the occasional cock crowing about the dawn I didn't know what for.
And I found I was being lit up by a pool of passing light for a second after which it shone on others and passed on. That was pretty scary and it repeated the next night too.
The next day I saw my mom participating in a hush-khush discussion with her neighborly ladies. And, after a few days of this nightly ruckus, story spread that our village hardy boys were lying in wait and caught a visitor to our village red-handed going about the streets and flashing a monstrous police torch light 9" long this way and that. And thrashed him and handed him over to the constable at our police station, who locked the chap up for the night and released him the next morning on condition that his 'prisoner' would quit the village pronto never to set his foot again and 'molest' our honorable residents.
...Posted by Ishani
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Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
...Gray's Elegy
I was talking of privacy in our Muhukur village in the 'powerless' starry nights in the 1950s when all of us were sleeping on charpais in our front-yards.
There was this curious incident that made headlines one of those days when we were passing through the dark phase of the moon (Krishna Paksham). It was midnight for all I knew...clocks rang no bells...except the occasional cock crowing about the dawn I didn't know what for.
And I found I was being lit up by a pool of passing light for a second after which it shone on others and passed on. That was pretty scary and it repeated the next night too.
The next day I saw my mom participating in a hush-khush discussion with her neighborly ladies. And, after a few days of this nightly ruckus, story spread that our village hardy boys were lying in wait and caught a visitor to our village red-handed going about the streets and flashing a monstrous police torch light 9" long this way and that. And thrashed him and handed him over to the constable at our police station, who locked the chap up for the night and released him the next morning on condition that his 'prisoner' would quit the village pronto never to set his foot again and 'molest' our honorable residents.
One of those days in early 1955 when our Loyland bus was newly commissioned, we had a visitor from Nagpur...It was our Nagpur-Auntie. She is a fiercely independent lady (now 85 and still sweetly at Nagpur). She was the first lady in our extended family to be employed full time...in the Welfare State of Indian Railways. She was as strict as she was sweet and brooked no nonsense. And wherever she went visiting her relatives, she would carry her portable hand-driven Singer sewing machine. And as long as she stayed with them, she would be busy stitching blouses, gowns, lehangas and waste-cloth-filled multipurpose 'bonthas' (razais) all for free.
I was then 12 and was commissioned to fetch our Nagpur-Auntie from Nellore. And we took the last bus from Nellore that started there at 8. The bus was half-full (or half-empty...take your pick). And we sat down in the seats in the middle. And across the aisle in the two-seater cushions I found our local Reddy's youngest son with his newly-wed bride, both of them whispering sweet nothings to each other in hushed tones.
And ten minutes into the journey we found ourselves in the lush jungle that I loved to watch. But the Loyland driver was in the habit of switching on all the lights inside his bus just to show off maybe.
Pretty soon our Reddy walked over to the driver and told him something and got back; and we found that the driver switched all the interior lights off.
That got my auntie's goat.
She started shouting at the driver asking him to switch on the lights...they were all driven by one master-switch...on or off...2-state system.
The driver switched the lights back on and the Reddy got angry and shouted at the driver who got scared since the Reddy was the son of the Village Munsif.
The lights went off.
Then my Auntie got furious and shouted at the driver:
"Do you know who I am? I am a Central Government Officer visiting the Head Master. I am from NAGPUR! If someone snatches my handbag or my sewing machine or my gold chain, or molests me in the dark, I will report to the Sub Inspector and see to it that you are jailed. Understand!"
And then the Reddy shouted back at the driver:
"If you switch on the lights, I will see to it that your Loyland Bus's Route License gets canceled"
That found the driver in the tricky situation my Father was fond of calling:
"Nut in a nut-cracker"
The conductor who was keeping silent till then got up and requested my Nagpur-Auntie to come over to the front-end and take up his precious Conductor's Seat which was a single-seater and had its own dim night-light that could be switched on even when all the other lights were off.
My Nagpur-Auntie was silenced and took all her precious luggage up front and bagged the conductor-seat.
But she didn't look all that happy though...
...Posted by Ishani
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