Mr. Umar

I am about to write about a person and I wonder if I can do enough justice to his genial personality. Mr. Umar was a graduate of the 1930s period. He joined the Mysore Geological Department (later called The Department of Mines & Geology) perhaps as a clerk on very modest salaries. I do not know precisely in what way, but in some way he felt extremely indebted to my grandfather (B.Rama Rao) who was the Director of the department for thirteen long years. I don't know if my grandfather was on an interview board which recruited Mr. Umar for a post in the department, or whether he had done him any favours in some other way, but I write to convey the deep appreciation of our entire family to Mr. Umar.

Mr. Umar was a lean and tall wiry person with sharp features and a very pleasant smile. He used to be immaculately dressed in a tasteful formal suit and a tie at all times. I've never seen him in casual apparel. His shoes were always polished to a glittering shine. I had a vague  idea that he lived in the 'Cantonment area,' which to us at that time in the fifties meant all of the vicinities of M.G. Road and Commercial Street and extending up to Frazer Town and Cox Town. Perhaps he lived in Frazer Town. He always cycled to work and I assume he was a meticulous worker.

My grandfather had retired from government service in the mid to late nineteen forties. Yet even as late as the late nineteen sixties I would see Mr. Umar rendering selfless service to my grandfather. Sunday mornings would have Mr. Umar cycle all the way from Frazer Town to our house in Vishweshwarapuram and he would arrive at our house by 9:30 or 10:00 a.m.  He would come all the way to wash my grandfather's car, check the water level in the radiator, drive it to the nearest petrol pump at Minerva Circle to have it refuelled and have the tyre pressures checked. He was an expert mechanic and would ensure that the vehicle was kept in excellent repair. I've never seen anybody serve another with such dedication, especially so when he had nothing to gain from my grandfather. My grandfather had a short fuse and even if my grandfather lost his temper, Mr. Umar bore it all with tremendous restraint and never appeared flustered.  Even after 15 to 20 years after my grandfather's retirement Mr. Umar was always readily available when my grandfather had to make short trips to Tumkur and Mysore in the car. Such trips meant that Mr. Umar had to apply for leave of absence from the office, yet he would ever so willingly do it. In 1956 when I was a small kid of four, Mr. Umar applied for a long leave of absence of almost a month to accompany our family on a South Indian tour by car.

Even when I was a lad of fourteen or fifteen, I had never realised the value of Mr. Umar's service to my grandfather. My friends would say mockingly "That man! He wears a suit and a tie and shoes and comes and washes your grandfather's car!" and I don't remember to have prevented such things.

My grandfather died in 1970, and at that time Mr. Umar was posted away from Bangalore. My grandfather had a wrist-watch which he had valued while he was living. I felt like possessing that watch after his death in his remembrance. But my mother thankfully was firm. She said that the watch should go to Mr. Umar as he had done so much service to my grandfather.

When Mr. Umar eventually visited Bangalore and thence our house, my mother presented the watch to him. She went over to the kitchen to prepare some coffee for Mr. Umar, and when she returned she found him weeping like a child.

Perhaps by now Mr. Umar would have passed on but I wish there was a way of letting his family know that we keep thinking of him and this article is a hopeful way of re-establishing contact.

The Hot-Cross Policeman !

There was a time in the 1960s when Bangalore police constables were pretty stiff and severe with bicyclists. Those days the wages of these cops were rather frugal and that used to motivate many of them to keep a watchful hawk's eye on petty traffic violators. There were many laws in place and the penury of the policemen would ensure that these laws were obeyed. There was a rule that cyclists had to compulsorily halt at 'Halt & Proceed' signboards. Double-riding on a bicycle was a strict No-No! Any cyclist pedalling the wrong way up a one-way street would be apprehended. And to be caught riding a bicycle without a proper light after 7:00 p.m. was the most heinous sin a cyclist could commit.

The impoverished police constable of those days would be on an eager lookout for violators. Each quarry caught meant that he could pocket a neat two rupees. As students, we were most wary of the 'no double-riding' rule and the rule of a 'light for the bicycle after 7:00 p.m.' We had our own tricks. The moment a cop apprehended a cyclist for double riding, the pillion rider would dismount and scoot from the scene. And without the presence of the second person, sometimes the cop would be forced to let the main rider free without being able to fleece him. But those days once you were caught for an offence, the chances of being let off without paying a bribe of two or three rupees were pretty slim. Having been forced to subsist on a slim pocket money of thirty rupees a month at the rate of a rupee a day, we used to be terribly nervous of getting caught by a cop for petty violations.

Bicycles of those days would come equipped with a mechanical dynamo, but since they were expensive, thieves would shear through the metal sleeve attachment  and steal them. Many others would use a flashlight with batteries, but since these would run out of charge it was considered very expensive to use them. The third alternative was to use a contraption similar to a hurricane lantern, much smaller in size though, and rectangular in shape, which would have a tape-like wick and the flame being kept alive with kerosene. This contraption would fit onto a slot on the cycle handle. Frequently this would burn yielding a thick soot that used to film the glass and render the light barely visible to pedestrians. A sufficiently severe gust of wind would extinguish the flame.

A friend of mine, Manu, once lit up such a lamp and ventured to ride his bicycle from Jayanagar 4th Block and towards Lalbagh West Gate after the deadline of 7O'Clock. He might have ridden the cycle for ten or twelve minutes when he was rudely accosted by a cop for riding the cycle without a light. My friend was surprised and when he checked the lamp, true enough the flame was extinguished. He pleaded with the cop that he had, in fact, lit up the lamp and that it must have gone off.

"Just shut up and come to the Police Station", he was rudely told by the cop. No amount of pleading would convince the cop who forcibly tried to lead both the cycle and the cyclist to the Police Station. My friend rued his luck, as he imagined that he would have to shell out a bribe from his pocket money for the month.

Just so that he could extract a heftier bribe, the cop began lecturing my friend on how the youth of those days were being spoilt by their parents and how the country is deteriorating due to lawlessness. He kept the moralising spiel at a sufficiently high pitch as he led the cyclist towards the cop station. He also talked of how, if he indeed went to the station, a stiff fine would be levied and so on. As he was busy framing the precise words and leading the offender away, he inadvertently laid his hand on the lamp which was still blistering hot, though the flame was extinguished.

"Eeoooww!!" the cop shouted and retracted his hand in a sudden violent jerk. There was a profound silence for a few moments as the cop eyed my friend meaningfully. My friend returned a blank and vacant stare that affirmed his innocence in the wicked workings of the universe.

"Sari !!  Haalagi hogu !!" ( o.k.!! Get Lost!!) said the embarassed cop and my friend was saved of a two rupee expense that would have meant two masala dosas, two vadas and two coffees for him and his girl in Bangalore of those days.

An Eloquent Muslim Advocates a movement for Democracy

Maajid Nawaz, a muslim perhaps of Pakistan origins but from Essex in England, who has a history of working to build up terrorist movements from the grassroot levels evidently has had a change of heart spurred on by his arrest in Egypt and also by being banned from entering three other countries. He talks very eloquently in this Ted Talk of why fundamentalists seem to be more successful in using modern technologies to build up their organisations than people who seem to be genuinely interested in liberal democratic ideas. One of the main problems is that radicals are more motivated and liberals are rather complacent. The ideas he puts across in this Ted Talk are very appealing. I earnestly seek readers to switch on their speakers and listen to this talk.


http://www.ted.com/talks/maajid_nawaz_a_global_culture_to_fight_extremism.html



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Painful Existence !

This is a story of a mother and two children. The mother, when she was a young woman of twenty-two or twenty three wed a man of around twenty-eight who was earning his livelihood as a purohit (priest). Her father too was in the business of purohitya, and in modern times when people's interest in things religious has been on a steady decline especially in cities like Bangalore, he could barely provide for the family and they lived a somewhat lower-middle class life. The father was anxious to get his daughter married off, and despite the fact that she was quite attractive, she could manage to get only another impoverished purohit as an alliance.

Some months into marriage, the young woman found the economic circumstances too straitened and, in addition, she found her husband to be too miserly. The food was scanty and to compound things the husband used to physically abuse his wife and would clobber her black and blue. But Indian women being what they are, tolerated all the physical violence and in a matter of four years she bore him two children.

As time progressed the abuse became more and more intolerable and the husband would strike the children too. Things deteriorated economically and when the woman found that she could no more tolerate the physical violence being rained on her, she quietly abandoned the husband and left her two children too to be looked after by the husband.

She ran away alone as she was not even sure where she would be going. She found a kindly family that sheltered her, and over a period of time, found a job that did not pay too well but was adequate for supporting herself.

One day as she was traversing through the city and had halted at a traffic light, she was suddenly accosted by her two children aged five and seven who had jumped out of an autorickshaw they were travelling in with their father and came to her expectantly and called out "Amma!! ...  Amma!!"

The woman saw her husband in the autorickshaw and due to the terrible fear that the children would receive a walloping from the father, ignored her two children and vanished in the traffic.

I only wish life doesn't give such deals to people and children!