2.
The Jamun tree

It cost a lot I thought. I put one carefully in my mouth aware of my increasing clumsiness and dropping purple stuff on my clothes. It was sweet enough and an unusual taste and I thought, why did I think it cost a lot?
Suddenly the ‘big Jamun tree’ came to mind. It was overhanging the earthen wall on the roof of my Nani’s house at Ludhiana. Prem got a stick and picked bunches of the purple fruit and filled a bucket full. All of us the younger lot, gathered the remains on the earthen ground and gleefully ran down to have our share of the, by now, salted and the sweetest of Jamuns.
You see the tree was actually in Shameem’s back ‘Angan’ but as it rose to the skies it got wild and hung its branches over our wall. The neighbors were a friendly lot who never complained, us, tasting their fruit to the brim. Their father was addressed as ‘Sunara’ (the jeweler) by nani / bhabi and he pierced all our girls earlobes with quick painless jabs, no anesthesia ofcourse, although the knotted wires did hurt for many days specially at bath time when bhabi would put Haldi and hot Ghee from the ‘garvi’ in the kitchen.
Those were the days----

Freud would ask ‘my earliest memory’.
It is of Lahore, the Mecca of Education of those times in North india. Balwant mamaji had me nestled on his left arm while he was using the right to brush his teeth with a ‘datun’ (branch of a kikar tree). He was the eldest after my mother, very dark complexioned while mother was very fair. He ofcourse married a very fair bride and I remember seeing the First ‘Playboy’ magazine at their house after his wedding. I was around 13. My heart had stood still, amazed that mamaji could have had such a thing with such ----pictures, I mean----
The ‘fair’ Mamiji died of Congestive heart disease in mid-life and ‘he’ of renal failure from an ignored stag-horn stone in his kidney.

Then was Bhabi’s big Red house at Takia Gujran Chowk. There were both Hindu and Musalman people living in the lane. The now ‘Lord Swaraj Paul’s family was down the road the ‘TIN walas’(steel dealers) selling mostly tin buckets and trunks. ‘Bhabo’(granny of the whole street) had a ‘Sanjha Tandoor’ (common oven) where it was common to go and get Tandooris baked by her while we all waited our turn, fascinated to watch her ‘burn’ her hands which never burnt only, some of the Rotis did.

My Nana (grandfather) was an Advocate; the Vakil of the town and Bhabi was Vakilni although she had no education and used to put a thumb print to sign if needed, till I taught her to write ‘Poorni Devi’ when I learnt it myself in the local Christian School. Nanaji walked with a funny wide gait with a stick for the Arthritis which he had as a very ‘dominant’ gene, as, down three, now four generations, we all have our share of it. He was tall and wore a Pagri or turban, like the Pathans, when he went out. His room was in the front of the house, which was called ‘Baujian di kothri’ or ‘Baithak’(drawing room), and most family was not really allowed in it or at least not to tamper with his stuff. When he interacted with the family he would sit or lie down in the middle of the verandah (courtyard) on the Charpoi and talk or shave or eat, slicing a Mango or Kharbooja deftly, having a slice, two, if sweet and give us the rest. Another peculiar thing he did was to form a ball of spit in his mouth and spit forcefully, far near the Nali (an open drain) as they showed in the film ‘Titanic’. Nana went to ‘the Court’ in his Rickshaw every day and listened to the Transistor most of the remaining day.

I think we were middle class and unlike my own father who rose above barriers, maternal ancestors stayed middle class, content with sharing from a small plate and living life from day to day.
‘Bai’ was nana’s father who always smoked the Hukka filling his Chillum (earthen container for coal to light tobacco) in the Kitchen often to the irritation of Bhabi, the reason of which I failed to grasp, as we loved his gurgling sounds and sometimes shared sucking or swallowing the smoke to watch the smoldering cinders.
Bai would let us have a ‘takka’ (2 pence) to buy a sweet and me and Kamlesh my youngest masi (aunt) were the happiest running into the ‘gali’(narrow street) to take our pick from the multicolor jar in the shop across.
Kamlesh always had untidy hair and perhaps I did too but we were the best of pals playing ‘Geete’, jumping rope and singing Lohri songs at Lohri, ‘dulla Bhatti vala Oye----’ We would go to shit together and often just sit on the Nali near the Cow-shed, the latrine being on the roof. Besides we could see from the cracks in the wooden planks of the then latrine, that some adult was already inside doing the same and we pretended we couldn’t wait.

Our playground was the roof, gali and the side lanes. Once, we had gone out, there were loud whistles, people hurrying, I hid behind a pole and suddenly there was no one, just a few soldiers whistling loud. Then I saw Prem (3rd uncle). He scolded me and took me home. At home ofcourse, he always used to get scolding and beatings from Nana. He never studied and was never home too. That is how he ‘the loafer’ had discovered me behind the pole. When at home he would hide on the ‘Chat vala Chavara’ which was a small room on the roof top, a sort of secret place for him and any one else who needed seclusion from the big family. It was always dusty and full of funny magazines, comics etc. Prem remains the least literate of the gang but everyone loves his company because he is the joker, never mind the number of times he uses cuss words including ‘pehnchode’(too X for translation) in his narrations. Ofcourse he did do all right in the end because he was one of few who had marvellous command of the Urdu language including the written script and when the Court needed a translator it was ‘he’ who fitted the slot. Not only has he been translating legal matters, he has also been able to do other wheelings and dealings to support himself and his family with dignity without accepting any monitory help from any of the later richer siblings.

Well ‘the whistling’ in the street was part of the Curfew when War was going on pre-independence. Somewhere then, our neighbors, the Sunaras, disappeared overnight and we heard there was looting in the house. My mother cried when she heard about it for their daughter was her closest friend and she still misses eating the ‘Gosht Biryanis’ with her in the same big Thali (Plate).

Now I know this was part of the anticipated Hindu Muslim ‘divide’.
A divide which was to, throw both Countries into ‘Chaos’, unresolved till date.
The British rule was technically-Historically over but it left influences deep in our ‘Psyches’ for which we were to pay a ‘price’, a price much more than the Jamun tree.

Veena