“I don’t ever remember
ever being aware of going past 50 years
of age and being afraid of “oldness”.!
Of course there are things I miss about being younger - chiefly the ability to pull all-nighters, and chasing the cricket ball over green turf ,and having chased it down to fine leg or third man boundary ,throwing it back with such power that it brought out dust from the wicketkeepers gloves .I miss taking on the young “pretender” of my crown ,my son at the squash courts and and at times not allow him even a single point in 3 games .!! I miss being smiled at by girls I didn’t know who thought I was cute; and I wish I had the eyesight ,and memory I had even five years ago… But quite honestly that stuff feels pretty trivial.
I’m happier than I’ve been at any time in my life these days. I have a wonderful wife whom I adore, and who thinks I have looked after her well and who admires me for my intelligence and resilience.I have watched my son grow into a amazing man, who is so steady that I wonder whether he was ever a teenager .I am proud of my ability to teach and to motivate .I am proud about the fact that people seek me out to speak on special occasions and at seminars .!! I have real, true, glorious friends, and I’ve been able to do real good for things I care about, like freedom of speech, travel ,write ,eat and drink the best wines and whiskey .Sometimes I work from 8 am to 8pm ,and yet walk my customary 8 kms to test and surprise myself .! I love my grey hair and thank God that he hasnt thinned my hair .!!I have travelled the world and met and seen amazing places and people .
I miss friends who have died, but then, I’m glad that life gave them to me, to befriend, even for a while, and that I was alive to know them. I knew Uncle Sumra , and I knew Jasmeet Singh(Jassi), and I knew Ravi Parinja, and I knew the Austrian Airline Airhostess ……… do you know how lucky that makes me? You would never know that because for that you would have to be me .
I know the downside of age and the downside of time, and I am sure that the view from age 55 is not the view from age 75.I know the importance of luck in life .I know that I was nearly given up as dead in a Delhi Hospital –but rose from the grave .I have been unlucky to be friends who I thought were fiercely loyal to me –only to find that they were just opportunists and were running with the hare and hunting with the hound .But I am mature enough not to spend my precious time on thinking much about them .I am sure they must have had their compulsions .Good luck to them .I am sure they also must be as happy as me –if not more .
I wish the time hadn’t gone so fast, though. And sometimes I wish I’d enjoyed it more on the way, and worried about it less.
Of course there are things I miss about being younger - chiefly the ability to pull all-nighters, and chasing the cricket ball over green turf ,and having chased it down to fine leg or third man boundary ,throwing it back with such power that it brought out dust from the wicketkeepers gloves .I miss taking on the young “pretender” of my crown ,my son at the squash courts and and at times not allow him even a single point in 3 games .!! I miss being smiled at by girls I didn’t know who thought I was cute; and I wish I had the eyesight ,and memory I had even five years ago… But quite honestly that stuff feels pretty trivial.
I’m happier than I’ve been at any time in my life these days. I have a wonderful wife whom I adore, and who thinks I have looked after her well and who admires me for my intelligence and resilience.I have watched my son grow into a amazing man, who is so steady that I wonder whether he was ever a teenager .I am proud of my ability to teach and to motivate .I am proud about the fact that people seek me out to speak on special occasions and at seminars .!! I have real, true, glorious friends, and I’ve been able to do real good for things I care about, like freedom of speech, travel ,write ,eat and drink the best wines and whiskey .Sometimes I work from 8 am to 8pm ,and yet walk my customary 8 kms to test and surprise myself .! I love my grey hair and thank God that he hasnt thinned my hair .!!I have travelled the world and met and seen amazing places and people .
I miss friends who have died, but then, I’m glad that life gave them to me, to befriend, even for a while, and that I was alive to know them. I knew Uncle Sumra , and I knew Jasmeet Singh(Jassi), and I knew Ravi Parinja, and I knew the Austrian Airline Airhostess ……… do you know how lucky that makes me? You would never know that because for that you would have to be me .
I know the downside of age and the downside of time, and I am sure that the view from age 55 is not the view from age 75.I know the importance of luck in life .I know that I was nearly given up as dead in a Delhi Hospital –but rose from the grave .I have been unlucky to be friends who I thought were fiercely loyal to me –only to find that they were just opportunists and were running with the hare and hunting with the hound .But I am mature enough not to spend my precious time on thinking much about them .I am sure they must have had their compulsions .Good luck to them .I am sure they also must be as happy as me –if not more .
I wish the time hadn’t gone so fast, though. And sometimes I wish I’d enjoyed it more on the way, and worried about it less.
I miss Dehradun.I have a
special liking for it and haven’t spent more than 3 or 4 days in it at a
stretch for nearly 40 years .As far as I am concerned ,it’s the best part of
the world for me to be in .Its not about roads ,hospitals and the clutter that
one sees in Dehradun these days .Its not even about the corrupt politicians who
have taken the simple and poor people of the hills for a ride .Its also not
about the forests that have been denuded
and the land mafia who have taken over most of the land .For me Dehradun is
about a wonderful childhood in the
beautiful suburb of Clement Town .Its about taking a bus ride through lazy and
traffic free roads from home to school .Its about Prem Singh ,our domestic help
bringing us fresh and hot rajma chaawal
peppered with fresh hot desi ghee made from the cream of the milk of our own
buffaloes .I can still get a whiff of the wonderful aroma of the food as I
write .I miss that .I get back a bit of it when I go back to Dehradun once in a
while .Yes ,I live a lot in the past .Why not ?I am not running away from
unhappiness .I am going back to a glorious past .
I also miss the way cricket
is played these days .Cricket has been a obsession .But I miss the way it is played
these days .Of course I haven’t divorced it simply because it is played in
different color clothing and at night with white balls .But for someone who was
brought up listening to John Arlott,Brian Johnston,Dicky Rutnagar ,Devraj Puri
and the other greats ,describing Tom
Graveney ,Frank Worrel ,Vijay Manjrekar ,Patuadi ,Farrouk Engineer and others
playing -it appears rude to hear someone
raise his pitch when a shot is hit for a boundary .I miss watching Sunny
Gavaskar take on the handsome Imran Khan ,or the sight of a lazy Bishen Bedi
twirl his hands over as if they were on well oiled ball bearings .It was a
different game .I miss that atmosphere and that class .Never mind how hard
people try to defend the modern game .
I miss my school and college
.I went to a fabulous school and a even better college .We had fantastic
Principals ,teachers and friends .We did
naughty things .We had our crushes on the girls from Convent Of Jesus and Mary
and Indraprasta College .But it was in a different way we went about it .The
cell phones ,the computers , the ipads –have killed romance and the thrill
associated with it .
I miss the great aura and
spell that the actors and actresses of the seventies cast on us .If you see
some of the early movies of actors like Dharmendra,Rajesh Khanna ,Shashi Kapoor
,Vinod Khanna,Sharmeela Tagore ,Saira Banu,Gregory Peck ,Doris Day (Kay Sarrah
Sarrah ,whatever will be will be,the future is not ours to see!!),Dilip Kumar
,Paul Newman …….you will surely agree that they were a sight for the Gods to
see .Now everyone looks the same .They walk the same way ,they dress in the
same way .I miss the great variety of the past stars .
But life has been kind .The
most important part is, that there has been very little I haven’t experienced
.I have experienced physical pain ,emotional trauma,loss ,failure, and at times
life has
made me feel small .But God has
given me more in terms of luxury,joy ,ecstacy,success and recognition .In
school, the kids made me feel like a
celebrity .What life holds for me in the future –I don’t know .I am prepared for
everything .And I don’t brood about the future ,because as Doris Day belted on
the jukebox in Napoli Restaurant on Rajpur Road ,Dehradun, everytime I went
there as a schoolboy
“Whatever will be will be ,
The future is not ours to see
,
Kay Sarrah Sarrah”
dun was nostagia and a paradise during 67 -70 joine class 7d in mid 67 and managed to get promoted to 8 in 6 months .biked from mohini rd dalanwala with raghuinder now FIL to dhoni our cricket captain. vipinrekhi,anil thapliyal ,rsgahlot ,iknigam ,kulbhushan i can distinctly recall.r s gusain used to sketch every teachers favourite expressions while the class was in progress .our pt teacher would ripoff your banian if he could spot holes or were dirty and send u for a frog jump .father john who taught us geography would ask u to smile while u were being caned .gc gupta. would inist that u buy his books brand new rather than second hand from the 2 stores sauja or universal opp the school gate.lunch time was bunsamosas .remember the entire school going to watch 10 commandments and the natraj cinema next to kwality motel sreening :Dr No and casino royale our trigonometry class teacher who was probably still a bachelor then gave his formula of remembering positive signs thru his all sex training centres or all silver tea cups which is still engrained in my memory after 40yrs .kulbhusan was a favourite to read text from our readers .the school fetes were amazing favotite being ring the beer bottle .annual sports were really memorable which each house having their banner and a grat march past and pt display .nakal karna hai to akal se was our hindi teacher statement .mr chaturvedi our hindi school teacher had his unique and flambouyant style of reading kabir ke dohey and would wake u up if by chancu u had gone to sleep .one of his favourite was Dukh Mein sumiran naa kiyaa ......while playing criket in scool on the mats i once got hit by afast delivery abefore i came to my senses i was taken off the pitch .our scool teachers belonged to a differnt class and discipline was injected into our blood stream and makes me proud that i belonged to that glorious past period .mussoorie was 22 kms away and Hardwar had live fishes visible in hari ki pauri .water was clean as crystal and drinkable too in those days.there were no waterpurifiers nor the need for them .still remember hitting his maiden century ,one of our class mates had a japanese transistor and had broght it to the school.there were valve radios .huge pieces and transistor was a recent invention.it was the days of charlie griffith and wesley hall .bill lawrie and chappel brothers heydays .south africa was forbidden to play international cricket .remarkable and nostalgic days .water used tobe canalised to the houses in dalanwala fot the friut and mango orchards besides the east canal road and u could hear the gushing sounds of water flowing thru the narrow canal .i dont know whether this system still exists..it was normal to see a big snake basking in the sun in winter and u had to be careful of the scorpions hiding in the creviices of your house
ReplyDeletewe had dug out our own badminton court and put on the light fixtures firnight play with raghuvinder and other neghbouring friends who stayed at nemi road . Those were the days my friend.......