CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNBELIEVABLE KIND--PREVIEWS

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNBELIEVABLE KIND

A.V. DHANUSHKODI

Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.  HAMLET, ACT  I , SCENE V

EPISODE SEVEN---PREVIEWS 

This episode dates back to my school days, when I was around ten.  It was the year of India’s independence.  I remember the declaration of independence well, by the coins released at the time; in particular, the white-metal four-anna coin with a prancing lioness on one side.  

I was in school in Kovilpatti, (the headquarters of a Taluk of the same name in the district of Tirunelveli), where my father was serving as the Deputy Collector of the Revenue Department. We were living in a bungalow, on the outskirts of the town. The bungalow stood on a raised level of ground, resembling a hillock, and from the veranda, which skirted around the three walls of the façade of the house, we had a bird’s eye view of the main road as it left the town, on its way to a small town called Ettayapuram, some eight miles away.  As Ettayapuram was within the jurisdiction of my father, I accompanied him on one of his official visits to the palace of the Raja of Ettayapuram.  Even now my memory of the Raja’s (who betrayed Kattabomman to the British) palace is green, particularly the arsenal, where unending rows of swords, spears, and shields were neatly arranged.  Most of them were rusted from years of disuse.  I lifted a sword from its place and tried to brandish it, but unsuccessfully, as it was very heavy for a boy of ten.  My father, who was observing me, told me to put it down, as only men could handle it, not a boy of ten.  I felt very disappointed with myself, that I was a mere boy of ten and not a man.

The bungalow we were living in had the typical layout and dimensions meant to be inhabited by British officers: large rooms, with high walls, supporting wooden beams, on which rested tiled sloping roofs.  Our bungalow had a spacious hall in the centre,  big bedrooms on either side of it (two of which on one side was used by my father as his office rooms), a corridor behind the hall, from which ran a covered and paved walk, through an open court, to the bathroom, kitchen, store room, and the servants’ quarters at the end of the house.  I could be describing any of the many bungalows we used to live in, during my father’s career in the revenue department of the provincial government as a Deputy Collector and, later, as the District Collector.

Of all the rooms in the house, one room fascinated me most: the office room, where my father sat at his large writing table.  On it were many objects, which would spin me into a daydream of being in my father’s place, handling them with great pride and authority.  In fact, I did so really, as often as I could, whenever I was at home and he was not. 

Most impressive was the table, when I sat in the revolving wooden chair with arms, and legs on casters.  The table was covered with a green felt-cloth, except for a width of about six inches all around at the edge.  I would sit in the chair and glide from one end of the table to the other, feeling the felt with my hand as I moved.  Then, I would pull the chair close to the table and scrutinise the writing pad, covered with a large blotting paper with dots and dashes and scribbling all over.  First, I thought they were notes meant to aid my father’s memory in writing some important official documents, but soon I discovered that they were mere doodling meant to try out new nibs.  At the time, there were no fountain pens but only wooden handles with provision at one end to fix metal nibs; after fixing the nib, one dipped the pen in an inkwell and wrote.  The pen-and-ink stand was made of either metal, or wood, or porcelain, with removable ink-pots, for red and blue inks.  I remember that Parker was the only brand of ink available then.  An inseparable accessory to the writing kit was the blotting paper, which was stretched and fixed over a semi-circular holder made of wood with a knob on top; when excess ink flowed from the nib on to the paper, one rolled the blotter thus fixed, over the writing.  I would pull out of the waste-paper basket scraps of discarded paper, carefully spill blobs of ink on them, and blot them out with the blotting paper.  Then, there was the pincushion with pins of different lengths stuck in it; staplers had not made their appearance then.  Pulling out the pins one by one and sticking them in again was a pure sensual pleasure.  The ruler was another object, which attracted my attention often: it was not flat but cylindrical, so that one could roll it on paper and draw parallel lines with certainty.   More fascinating were the photographs, which were printed on them.

Of all the objects on the table, I can never forget the calling bell.  I have often seen and heard father summoning the peon on duty, with one strike on its head.  Occupying his seat, I would often imitate his authoritative manner while striking the bell, but no peon would appear to know my pleasure; however, that was easily solved by my doubling as the peon, with sincere servility, asking for my father’s pleasure.  I would then, as my father, bid him bring me a cup of coffee immediately and then, as the peon, run out of the room to the kitchen and inform my mother of the bidding, but she would “shoo” the peon out with one sweep of her hand.  Unfazed, I would pretend to have received a cup of hot coffee from her and run back to the office-room to offer it to myself as the father and accept it from the peon.  I would then, as the father, dismiss him with all magnanimity, back to his afternoon siesta, with the assurance that I would not wake him up again, until he woke up on his own, knowing it would never happen. 

One day, when I ran to the kitchen as the peon for a cup of coffee for myself as the father, my mother played along and took about five minutes to mime coffee making. That was truly a revelation leading to the realization as to the origins of my histrionic talent.  Taking the steaming cup of coffee, I ran back into the office-room to offer it to myself as the father, bending low and extending both hands holding the cup of coffee and saying, “Ayya, kaapi”, when I saw, to my unspeakable horror, my father sitting behind the massive table with the sternest look I had ever seen on anybody’s face within the short span of ten years of my existence.  The sight made my hands shake so violently, I thought I heard the clatter of the cup on the saucer; surely, I had reached the end of my life, when I saw him boring through me with his laser-look.   Then I heard his sharp command, “Leave the cup of coffee on the table and get lost for good!”  That was the second revelation and realization as to the origins of my histrionic talent. As I stood there for a moment, speechless, he added, “At this rate, you will really end up as a peon when you grow up.”  I turned around and shot out of the room, without telling him that I had played him as well, and that I had a fifty-fifty chance of ending up   as the Deputy Collector of Kovilpatti, when I grew up.

Another day was a holiday for my father and for me.  The afternoon was rather hot and he was going through a pile of files in his office-room.   The peon on home-duty was outside the office room, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, and pulling  the pankha rope.  Slowly his eyelids began to drop, he began to doze, and soon he was motionless.  Within minutes, I heard my father call out, “Ahamed Ali!”  Ahamed Ali woke up with a start and started pulling the rope vigorously.  Again, after a few minutes, he slowed down and turned into a statue.  But this time, before my father called out to him, I gently took the rope from his open hand and started pulling  it, sitting with my back to him.  Poor man, he was fast asleep, unaware of what was happening.  I must have pulled for about five minutes, at a steady pace, without a break.  Then, suddenly, I felt the presence of someone behind me.  I turned around to see my father standing at the door, staring down at me.  It was then that I realized that Ahamed Ali was blissfully snoring.  The snoring and the rhythmic movement of the pankha must have presented a puzzling picture to my father, who must have decided to investigate in person The Case of the Snoring Pankha.  I stopped pulling and sat still, waiting for the death sentence (the Deputy Collector was also empowered to perform the functions of a First Class Magistrate in those days); the pankha rope at hand would have served well as the hangman’s noose. 

Even early in his career, my father had earned the reputation of being  an official of absolutely unbending character in his admirable integrity, which he maintained even after retirement, until his final call.  I did not know then that he secretly nursed a dream that I should follow in his footsteps, until one day, much later, towards the end of his career, he expressed his wish about my future.  It was too late then to change my mind, which was set on becoming an artist.  However, as I loved and adored him from the time I could remember, I did attempt thrice to get into the Indian Administrative Service, but only half-heatedly, that I failed to fulfil his dream.  Later, when I was selected by the American Government to serve as the Economic and Commercial Specialist at the American Consulate in Chennai, he was much mollified and happy, having been disillusioned by then with the Indian government service.  He was happy for another reason that I did not turn into one among the few who dared to become artists.  He believed firmly, that artists were destined to die of starvation, however good they were in their art.  At the time, his belief was not far off the mark.

Now, he merely told me in a tired voice, “I appreciate your laudable ambition in life.  When you grow up, I’ll appoint you as the Chief Pankha Puller at the Collectorate.”   With that, he turned around and went back to work.  After a moment of indecision, not having the heart to wake up Abu Ben Adam from his “deep dream peace”, I picked up the rope from where I had dropped it and began pulling the pankha  at a steady pace.  After about five minutes of steady pulling, I was eager to see my father’s appreciative nod and slowly peeped in.  The room was empty.

I don’t remember if Kovilpatti had electric power in those days but, I am sure, our house did not have electric power.  It is only logical to assume that if the most powerful man in the taluk had no power, then the whole town must have been powerless. Still, logic and rational thinking have not had much to do with the goings on in our country, then and now. However, I still remember visually vividly the daily ritual Ahamed Ali performed at dusk.  In one corner of the veranda next to the office room, around ten hurricane-lanterns stood in a row.  Ahamed Ali would sit in front of them, place them one by one in front of him, and dismantle them.  Then, most diligently, he would wipe every part of every lantern, taking his time. 

The most fascinating and delicate operation of all was cleaning of the glass shade of the lantern. He would take it out of the lantern with utmost care, as a surgeon would a baby, the operation being as delicate and tricky as delivering a baby.  The glass shade was held in place by a thin aluminium wire guard, most ingeniously designed to hold it tight, and by a clamp-cover at the top, which had a built-in spring.  One had to first pull the clamp up by a ring attached above it, tilt the shade to one side, and gently coax it out of the wire-mesh by enlarging the opening at the top with one hand.  Ahamed Ali would do it all with great ease, what appeared to me to be the most delicate and complicated operation. After having coaxed all of them out, he would neatly arrange them in front of  him and open a packet of finely ground ash, drop a pinch of it into the shade and swish it around deftly to spread it into a thin film along the inner wall of the shade, take a piece of clean thin cloth (most probably one of the old discarded mull dhotis of my father), place it inside and wipe the glass with it; he would then repeat the same process for cleaning the outside of the shade.  When all the shades were wiped spotlessly clean, he would cut the tip of the burnt edge of the flat wick with a pair of small scissors, pour kerosene from a glass bottle into the container at the bottom, and assemble them one by one after lighting the wicks with Cheetah Fight matchsticks.  Finally, he would take them one by one to every room and hang them from hooks, hanging from the ceiling in the centre of every room.

Many, many, evenings I used to sit next to him and watch him clean the   lanterns and wish that I could do it, someday, at least once, if he would let me.  But there was no hope, he wouldn’t let me even touch the lanterns, let alone clean them.  Whenever I asked him when he would relent, he would answer, “Never, until you grow up!”  I would protest, “I may not want to, when I grow up.”  “Well, that’s your problem,” he would answer, “If I let you clean them, I would lose my job,” was his stock answer.  Not you too Ali, I would despair within myself.

I was not sure if I was growing up but, as sure as not, I knew that my despair was growing.  I would often ask my mother how long it would take me to grow up and she would answer with an enigmatic smile, “That depends on you.  If you want to grow up soon, you would; if not, you would not.”  That sounded more like a limerick or a conundrum, but not an honest reply to an honest question.  After a couple of days of concentrated cogitation on that, I asked her again, “If I become as big as Ahamed Ali, will I be grown up?”  Out came another riddle of a reply from the Sphinx, if it was to answer, instead of question, “Sort of,” and I was   left to myself to sort of sort that out.  Soon, I went to her again for clarification.  “When you are as big as Ahamed Ali, surely, one half of you will be grown up, but I’m not sure of the other half,” was her   ‘clarification’.  “The other half? What is that? And where is that?” I   pestered.  At that point, she lost her temper, knocked me on top of the head with her knuckles, and said, “There!”  So it came to pass that the most profound question remained a question without the other half. 

***

The Board High School, where I studied, could be reached through a short cut, a footpath that started opposite our house, on the farther side of the road to Ettayapuram, and ran straight as a crow flies, but not as a man walks.  One had to negotiate the footpath up and down mini mountains and valleys, turning and twisting left and right around boulders and shrubs.  The walk to the school up and down was the first training ground in calisthenics for me, and Ahamed Ali was my mentor.

One day, Ahamed Ali did not turn up on time to take me to school.  My father wanted me to wait until Ali came, but I begged my mother to persuade my father to let me walk to the school on my own; I was surprised when my father agreed.  I took off with bounding steps, in spite of the heavy schoolbag, which was otherwise carried by Ahamed Ali. 

When I crossed the road, I slowed down to pick some wild flowers and colourful pebbles on the way, which I couldn’t have done normally, with Ahamed Ali egging me on.  As I wound my way up and down the path, a very bright flower of lemon yellow hue arrested my attention.  I wanted to pluck it, but could not reach it, as it was in a thorny shrub beyond a big boulder.  As I stood there, wondering how I could reach it, I saw a long arm extend from behind me and gently pluck the flower.  I turned around and saw him standing behind me with the flower.  He offered it to me with a smile, “Take it, it’s for you!”

I did not take the flower from him.  I hesitated, when I recalled my mother’s edict: “Don’t accept anything from a stranger.”  Strangely, he did not look like a stranger.  There was something very, very familiar about him.  He was quite tall and lean and wore glasses.  His white shirt with half-arms was tucked into his half-pants.  He was wearing slippers.  As he was not carrying anything, I assumed he was not on his way to school. He must have been around fifteen.

I gazed at him for quite some time, trying to recollect where and when I had seen him.  He was still smiling at me, holding the flower.  Something in his inviting smile and look made me forget my mother’s edict, and I took the flower, “Thanks, I have to go now.  It’s getting late for school.” 

“Yes,” he replied and stood there, looking at me. 

“Where are you going?” I asked him.  

“Well”, he scratched his head, “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you go to school?” I asked, a little surprised.

“I do, but today is a holiday,” he replied.

“Today is a holiday?  Where do you study?”

“Yes.  MCC, Madras Christian College School.”

I had not heard of that school.  “Where is it?”

He laughed, “Madras Christian College School is in Madras, obviously.”

“You have come here to spend your vacation with your parents?”

“No, I really don’t know” he replied, with a confused look on his face.

“Where do you live?  I think I have seen you before,” I said.

“Even you look like someone I have met somewhere,” he replied.  He was trying hard to recollect. 

“I should be going now, it’s really getting late.”  I turned around and walked briskly to make up for the time lost.  Once or twice, I turned back and saw him still standing there, waving to me.  When I had almost reached the school, I turned back for the last time to look at him, but he was not there.  I think, from my position, he was hidden from view behind the big boulder and the bush, from which he plucked the bright yellow flower.

The next day, walking down the path to the school with Ahamed Ali, I told him about the tall young boy I had met the day before, but he did not appear to have seen him before in the town.  I asked him to find out where he lived, but Ahamed Ali needed specific description, or his name, neither of which I could give him. As days and months passed, he slowly slipped out of my thoughts and memory.

*

A few months later, my father decided to take us to a film, released a few days before. Very, very rarely did my father accompany us to film shows: first, he was never much interested in watching films and, secondly, he was so very busy day and night with his office work, that he truly had no time for any kind of entertainment.   I remember nothing of the film now, except that it was a “Raaja-Raani” film, with a number of fighting and dancing scenes with songs strewn all over.

When we entered the theatre, the film was already running.  It was a small makeshift theatre, with a corrugated tin-sheet roof.  Nearly half the auditorium from the screen was earth, covered with sand.   The rest of the auditorium was filled with rows of long wooden benches, up to almost the projector-cabin.  Adjoining the cabin was a raised platform running along the width of the theatre, on which was a row of wooden chairs with arms, meant for the VIPs.

The auditorium was almost full.  We were given a royal welcome by the owner of the theatre, who ushered us to our VIP seats in the centre of the row of armed chairs.  None else was seated in the row, except us.  The owner of the theatre sat next to my father at the other end, next to my father was my mother, next to my mother was my brother, and finally I had taken my seat at the end.  The owner enquired if he could get us biscuits and cakes with coffee or cool drinks, but my father declined politely, “Not now, in the interval perhaps”, and told him not to feel compelled to sit with us through the film.  After a few minutes, the owner excused himself and left, promising to see us again in the interval.  We then began to watch the film.

As the film progressed, I became more and more engrossed in it, especially the fight-scenes and the fiery dialogue-scenes.  I could not take my eyes off the screen, except when the song and dance sequences appeared and when the auditorium lights were switched on as the projectionist changed the reel: in those days, the small and touring theatres had just one projector and at the end of every reel it had to be removed and the next reel loaded, which took about five minutes, when the auditorium lights would come on and the patrons would go out for a cup of hot tea or to smoke a cigarette. Also, boys of my age from the nearby teashops would weave through the patrons on the sand, with an aluminium tray of biscuits and a wire mesh contraption carrying four or six glass tumblers of hot tea. During those mini-intervals, I would listen to film songs sung by P.U. Chinnappa or M.K. Thiagaraja Bhagavathar, blaring from the theatre loudspeakers.

After one of those mini-intervals, I was deeply involved in a very dramatic scene, in which the villain and the hero were fighting on the ramparts of a fort. That scene was followed soon by a song and dance sequence. Least  interested  in  it, I  turned away  from  the  screen,  to  discover someone sitting next to me.  I had not noticed him taking the seat, as I was deeply drawn into the fighting scene on the screen. 

I was able to see his right profile, dimly lit by the screen.  He must have been in his early forties.  He was tall and lean, his hair was dark and thick and his well-trimmed moustache was drooping at the tips.   He wore looking glasses and a dark suit. He must be a VIP, otherwise he would not be sitting in the chair next to me, I thought. 

As I was staring at him, he turned to me and smiled.  I was embarrassed that he caught me staring at him. 

“Hello!” he greeted me.

“Hello!” slipped out of me. I had heard that word before, but I didn’t know what it meant.

“Are you a VIP?” I asked him.

“I guess I am not,” he replied with a chuckle, “Why?”

“These seats are meant for VIPs”, I informed him, after some hesitation. 

“I see, I didn’t know”, he confessed.  Then he asked me seriously, “Are you a VIP?”

I was waiting for that question.  “I am not, but my father is,” I replied and pointed to my father, at the other end of the row.

He leaned forward and looked at my father, “I see.”

By now the song had stopped and I turned back to the screen to watch the film, but I was taken aback when I realized that the movie was set in contemporary times.  The scene was at the entrance to a church and there were many characters assembled in formal dresses, as if they had come to attend a wedding.  Among them were two characters: one of them was old, who looked like the father of the other, who was in his early forties.  They were vehemently exchanging words, at the end of which the father slaps his son, and the son stands there paralysed by his father’s unexpected behaviour.  When the camera zoomed in to show the shocked expression of the son, I was shocked to realize that the man, who was sitting next to me in the theatre, was the son on the screen.  At that moment, I turned to look at the man sitting next to me, but to my great surprise, he was not there.  Thinking that he had stepped out to have a cup of tea, I turned to watch the film, but I received another shock.  The hero and the villain of the Raaja-Raani were exchanging heated words at the end of which the villain slaps the hero.  I felt dizzy.  I must have fainted.

When I came to, I was lying on a cot at home and my father was sitting on the cot next to me with his hand on my forehead.  My mother was sitting on the floor, holding my hand.  Gently caressing my forehead, my father was saying, “He has fever”. His words came from afar.  I had never known him to be so caring in words and action. 

The fever lasted for two days, at the end of which I told my parents what had happened, but they wouldn’t believe me.  They insisted that I must have fallen asleep in the theatre and dreamt of the man next to me and the strange movie on the screen.  As I had no other explanation, I began to believe what they believed must have happened.

***

A few years later, when my father decided that my brother and I should live with my maternal grandparents, I was admitted in the Madras Christian College High School. Once, thumbing through some of the photographs taken at the time, I had the feeling of déjà vu when I looked at them.  As I stared at my photographs, trying to recollect where I had seen myself before, I realized that  the brief encounter I experienced in Kovilpatti as I was walking to school alone, was with myself at fifteen.  Many, many years later, as the last scene of the film “Rajapaarvai” was being shot at the entrance to the cathedral near the Gemini traffic junction with me and L.V. Prasad as my father, I realized with even greater amazement that that was the very scene I watched briefly in the makeshift theatre in Kovilpatti, with myself at forty, sitting next to me.

A.V. Dhanushkodi,

January 2010