Throughout the time I was cleaning the room prior to retiring for the night, I had tuned on the transistor radio for an Urdu programme broadcasting film-songs. I was not too conscious of any sounds within the room or on the outside. Later, after I tuned out the transistor by switching it off and blowing out the flame of the candle, the room and the surroundings became strangely quiet. As time flowed on there was a distinct tap on the roof. Then another one…and after some more time, another. I could not surmise what the noise was due to and crawled out of the sleeping bag and came out of the room with a electric torch to investigate. The night was pitch-dark and spangled with stars. The milky-way galaxy could be distinctly seen. When I shone the torch on the roof, there appeared nothing to be seen. The roof was barren. So I returned and crept into the snug warmth of the sleeping bag. Those noises on the roof at intermittent intervals continued throughout the night. Soon I lapsed into deep sleep.
When I woke up, it was already quite bright. As I lay within the sleeping bag and gazed at the roof, I saw that it was made of tin sheets. That clarified matters regarding the strange tapping noises I had heard at night. During the day, the heat of the sun would have expanded those sheets, and at nights, as the temperature dipped, they would contract giving rise to those intermittent tapping noises. Later, the boy who was to work for me as a field-guide arrived, together with the chappathis both for breakfast and for packed lunch.
There were two interesting events at that camp. I will relate the first one that linked me to my hometown Bangalore. Every evening we would return to camp at around 5:00 p.m. Later, the boy and his father would bring chappathis for dinner at around 7:00 p.m., and on my finishing dinner by around 7:20 p.m., they would leave and I would be all alone. I would be sitting outside the room on a ledge gazing out at the dark sky looking for stars and planets that were familiar to me. Somedays I would feel particularly nostalgic and homesick for Bangalore. I was scarcely 23 years old, and having been in urban environs with many friends and companions, time would hang very heavy during those lonesome nights. I would strongly wish to connect in some way to Bangalore, and in this wistful effort, I would keep slowly keep turning the dial of the transistor, with a faint hope of picking up the Bangalore All India Radio Station. Those days, it was only the short-wave frequencies that would be transmitted over such vast distances, and Bangalore did not have a short-wave broadcasting facility. This city had only two or three medium-wave frequencies over which it would broadcast its radio programmes. Unfortunately, medium-wave broadcasts would not be picked up at such a great distance from Bangalore. But in my seething nostalgic desire, I would keep trying desperately for Bangalore. One day there was a miracle. At around 7:30 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. I faintly picked up on medium-wave the Bangalore station of All India Radio. I was so thrilled! That day the program was of an interview with a few boys and girls of The National College, Basavanagudi, Bangalore. Most of them were the sophisticated and polished English-speaking variety holding forth on various aspects of culture and politics. There was a lone Kannada-devotee who spoke exuberantly and vivaciously on how he venerated the Kannada matinee-idol Rajkumar, and how he considered him the best actor in the world.
It was a rare moment over there in a lonesome school on top of a ridge in Kumaon in 1976 when I got to hear of our own home-grown Rajkumar. I was trying to visualize the reactions of the English-speaking crowd who were in the interview. Perhaps a candid television shot would remove much of the magic of that feeble connection that I had established with my home Bangalore way out from a desolate place in the Kumaon Himalaya.
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