SENIORS SPECIAL
(Strictly time-pass piece please)
Hello Dada, how are you? I asked my friend Mr Bhattacharya who is visiting his daughters in A and B blocks. “Not okay. I fell off my cot in Kolkatta and suffered a head injury.” “But you look perfectly fine,” I told him. “No, no, after that incident I am forgetful. I remember well the theories and principles I studied in my engineering course, but forget things that happened an hour ago.” “Not to worry Dada, it happens with me too,” I told him, off-guard. “Like what?” he quipped. “Well in my case it is different. I forget when I owe money to others, and remember distinctly when I have to recover.”
It is nice to have him with us. The only occasion I welcomed his absence, however, was at an earlier Srishti Day seniors’ walking race, which enabled me to win it. Had he been around, with his tall figure and long legs, he would have re-enacted the Vamana Avtar when, with one step the Lord measured the world, the nether world with the second, and with no space left, he placed it on the king’s head, for him discard pride for humility.
We called on Krish and Hema, B-Block, on the eve of their departure to USA. Hema had just ticked the last item on her list – rava laadu (suji laddu) for her grandchildren. Krish was already mentally in USA on his bicycle, ears plugged to Beethoven’s 5th symphony, waiting at Saratoga for the signal to turn green. Srishtites will miss his morning flute jugal bandhi of old Hindi and Tamil film songs. I am still to figure out why he hurries to the next song before he plays even one stanza of the first; maybe he wants to rehearse as many tunes as possible within the time he allotted to the music session.
The Radhakrishnans, of A Block, have arrived from London - not that it is a Srishti mandate that each departure must match an arrival - just a coincidence. While most of us return from such trips either having put on or pulled down, Radhakrishnan’s weight stays to the last milligram, I bet. There is a touch of class in everything that he does. I am sure he must have completed the To-Do list that awaits such long absences - pay property tax with penalty, retrieve the telephone instrument deposited for safe custody from one of BSNL’s umpteen gunny bags stacked under their staircase, restore internet and landline connections, locate and reinstate domestic help, and what have you. Thus one could now hope for some unadulterated Carnatic music – the best of it to A Block and the rest to B Block residents.
We were happy to welcome back Ganesan-ji (A-Block Siva’s father) who was admitted to hospital for bed-rest when he was taken ill. The Siva family has since shifted to HSR Layout. Like Brutus said in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “Not that I love Caesar less, but that I love Rome more,” defending his complicity to Caesar’s assassination, Siva said that it was not the lack of love and affection from Srishti-ites but proximity to his office that forced this decision. Srishti’s loss is Shoba Daffodil’s gain.
Last but not the least, Mr D’Souza, of B-Block, is back in action with his resplendent smile, which was missing for a while when his health suffered a setback. He is now regular in his rounds, though walks a little slow, but his movements are no longer calculated to draw the minimum of attention. He is brimming with confidence. After the Srishti Day carom tournament a few years ago, we had promised we would continue play carom. Instead, we seem to be playing hide and seek.
Sundaram
B-703
10 July 2011
