Bombay in 1969 - 1

As students of IInd year B.Sc.(Hons.), four of us aged about 17 years got a chance to go on an educational tour of India with post-graduates students who were in their early twenties. We were all keen to visit North India and jumped at the opportunity of going on the geological tour with the seniors.

However the experience was not so pleasant as we had expected. The whole tour was covered by train except for short tours when we were briefly stationed in larger towns.Our teachers were lucky to be comfortably travelling in First Class and getting sufficient sleep and rest by nights while we students had to suffer out sleepless nights as we squeezed into unreserved compartments in Third Class, and quite a few of us at times travelled throughout the night standing in toilets of the bogies. Days would have us trudging tens of kilometers in the hot sun at fieldwork and most of us were quite spent and exhausted as we hardly got any sleep where most often we could not even get a seat to sit down. Our teacher took it upon himself to 'toughen' the students for future jobs as geologists and I remember that once near Nagpur we walked from one town to another covering a distance of over twenty kilometers carrying bulky rock samples. By the middle of the tour, when we reached Bhilai where a major steel plant is located, we were quite pooped. At that town, a geologist from Karnataka who was in quite a senior position in the steel plant invited the entire group for a dinner at his house, but I could see that he was surprised to see us so spent and without spirits.

And so it happened that as we neared the last leg of the tour - there were still about 7 to 8 days left - and reached Baroda, one of my classmates - T.G.V Kumar, 'developed' an acute appendicitis condition. The teachers got quite apprehensive and took him to a doctor, and as the doctor set about to examine him, he squealed in great pain. The doctor expressed the opinion that he may need an urgent operation for appendicitis and it became quite a problem to admit him to a hospital in Baroda.  Kumar then suggested to the lecturer that he had a cousin in Bombay and that he would like to proceed there without delay and take treatment under  the cousin's hospitality. The lecturer felt that as we were to go to Bombay in a few days, it may be a good idea to send Kumar there immediately.  Later when Kumar and the rest of us students were in the hostel the lecturer announced to all of us :

"Kumar has to be taken forthwith to Bombay for treatment for an appendicitis condition. We need one of you to accompany him. Who among you is familiar with Bombay and is prepared to go?"

I saw this as a godsend opportunity to escape from the drudgery of sleepless nights and arduous fieldwork. But I didn't know a thing about Bombay. True! I had been there once when I was four years old, but I knew nothing about the place. Yet the torture of field work in the blazing sun could be avoided if I only were to risk it out with Kumar. I briefly weighed the options and boldly announced "Sir! I'm quite familiar with Bombay and am willing to accompany Kumar !"

The lecturer asked "Are you sure...?"

And somewhat nervously and feebly I said "yyes..."

Then it was decided that I and Kumar would proceed to Bombay from Baroda by a night Mail train. After a while, when there was an opportune moment, Kumar surreptitiously pulled me aside and whispered "hey! I'm not having any pain or any such nonsense. I'm just planning to get away from this drudgery and faked the whole thing!"

I looked at him totally surprised. He had done such a neat job of faking appendicitis. In any case I too wanted an escape and kept totally mute about the whole charade. That evening the entire group of students (nearly 30 of them) and  the lecturers came and gave us such a grand farewell at the station, that the others in the compartment were left wondering what it was all about! The spectacle was even further accentuated since there were a few attractive girls around in the train and everyone, especially after those days in the boondocks, wanted to draw their attention.

After the train left the station  Kumar and I settled down in our seats and got busy to find out how to reach our residence in Bombay. Kumar's cousin an engineer by name Ramachandra, apparently lived in an apartment in Colaba. Kumar had the name of the building where his cousin lived but didn't seem to have the precise address. I seem to remember the name of the building as 'Sunflower' but Kumar says it was more like 'Sunita'.  We next got busy asking our co-passengers as to how to get to Colaba from Bombay Central, and when they saw that we knew nothing of Bombay, they advised us to just tell the taxi wallah to take us to 'Afghan Church' in Colaba and try our luck around.

The train reached Bombay at around 6:00a.m. and we came out of the station and accosted a friendly-looking Sardar driver and told him that we were to go to Colaba, near 'Afghan Church'.  Those days I was not too familiar with spoken Hindi and found it somewhat difficult to even understand it.  We got into the rear seat of the taxi and as it coursed its way around I asked Kumar to keep a watch on the right side of the road while I ventured to keep watch on the left looking out for 'Sunita' building.

As we kept  a hawk's watch, soon we found that the signboards of shops had 'Colaba' written on them. I asked Kumar to become more alert as we had reached the vicinity of our destination. We kept on reading the building names and suddenly I espied 'Sunita'. I hastily asked the driver to halt and that we wanted to get down. "But you said Afghan Church..." he seemed to say in Hindi as he stopped the car.

                                                                          To be continued...