An Evening with the Poets

My friend was pleasantly surprised when he received an invitation to the poetry reading function of the Sahitya Akademi.The Akademi was celebrating its golden jubilee and poets from all corners of the state were invited to read their poems in the jubilee function.
It was positively a great honor for my friend for though he was a good poet and quite senior a practitioner of the poetic art, he rarely got any invitation to any meeting. He just didn’t have the necessary wile to be famous. And now, suddenly recognized by the state, he really felt elated.Butr diffident as he was, he asked me to accompany him on that day.
It was evening when we reached the meeting place. The whole area was nicely decorated. Massive hoardings on the nation’s culture were displayed. Big paintings of dead littérateurs adorned the walls. Poets from all over the state had come and had occupied the hundreds of rows of chairs neatly arranged in front of the podium.
My friend, dressed in immaculate white, felt a tingling sensation on entering the meeting ground .For the first time in his life he was feeling the importance of being a poet.
We took our chairs in one of the middle rows. After the customary welcome, the poetry reading session statrted.The president invited the poets one by one to the dais to read their poems.
It was really nice for the poets to recite their own poems. In the first one hour we had the pleasure of listening to all our famous poets. Huge encomiums were showered on them by the president of the meeting. Famous as they were, it was not decent for them to listen to other lesser known poets and hence they left the place as soon as they finished reading their poems. Still many poets waited expectantly waited for their turns.
But just at this time came the bombshell. The president announced that in view of the shortage of time every poet would be allowed only two minutes to read his poem. Hardly had he finished, there rose a murmur of protest among the poets. Some one quite loudly remarked, “This boot-licking slave of a president could give as much time as they wanted to all the big names. And now he asks us to finish our poems within two minutes!”
The president (quite a seasoned president he was) pretended not to have heard all these remarks and announced name after name. The poets, though dissatisfied, did not make an issue of it. No body wanted to lose the opportunity of reading his poem to such a vast audience.
But taking all of us completely unaware, the platform suddenly turned into a battlefield. It all happened in this way. An old poet was reading his poem and he had not quite finished when the name of the next poet, a young one, was announced. The young man dashed onto the stage and seeing the old man still reading his poem and thus taking away the allotted time to him, pulled him away from the microphone and started reading his poem into it.
But the old poet, determined to complete his poem, gave a push to the young man and moved close to the microphone. Not to be outdone, the youngman gave a spirited blow to the old poet who tripped and almost fell to the lap of the president of the meeting.
But the president, keeping strictly to his two minute schedule, went on calling out the names of the poets and the poets crowded onto the stage. Soon they started snatching the microphone from one another. The stage became a regular boxing arena with free blows freely exchanged between the poets on the stage.
Soon the supporters of the warring factions took up the cause and with war cries joined the battle. Chairs were hurled into the air like missiles on their missions and all the decorative fittings were wrenched from their places to serve as readymade weapons.
Seeing this sudden development the president announced the meeting closed and silently slipped through the back door. Many in the audience also quietly made their way out. We were totally shaken and my poet-friend, unaware of this chivalric dimension of poetry, nearly fainted. We also could not make our exits as we were locked in a place with fights raging all around us.
But when the police whistle blew, most of the war heroes made a dash for the exit and soon vanished into the dark. Some of us could not just manage that as it was difficult to negotiate our way through broken chairs and glass splinters. And by the time we reached the exit, the police was already there.
My friend was a bit ahead of me in order to get out of the area as soon as possible. He was halted by a stern-looking police official and was asked, “Are you a poet?”
My friend understood the import of the question and mumbled, “No, no, I am not at all a poet. I just came….”

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The Trick that Memory Plays

I have an awfully bad memory. I would even forget the face of the man I had met a couple of hours before. I had been put to embarrassing situations quite a number of times when I had failed to recognize my intimate friends of yester years. The most unfortunate thing happened one day when in spite of my best mental efforts I failed to place a lady who behaved rather quite intimately. Later on I recollected that she was my sweetheart for quite a number of years and I had in fact vowed not once but several times to love her not only in this life but also in all other lives to come.
But the most terrible thing took place a few days after my marriage. Mine was an arranged marriage in typical traditional Indian way. My parents saw the bride and selected her. Just before the final consent was given I was allowed a brief glance at my would-be-wife in a nearby temple. Fortunately she was pretty looking and I just nodded my head to my mother. After marriage, both of us came to stay in the town where I had a government job.
Just a few days after our stay in the town, that terrible calamity took place. It was a Saturday afternoon. We were watching T.V. in our bed room. It was an interesting program and we were deeply absorbed in it. Just at this time the buzzer sounded and I got up to open the door. I found an old man standing outside with a small briefcase.
I asked him, “Whom do you want?”
The old man did not reply, but merely kept on staring at me.
I got annoyed, for I was missing the precious moments of the program. I almost shouted at him, “Yes, whom do you want please?”
The old man still did not utter any word. It seemed to me either he was totally deaf or a complete idiot. When again I persisted with my question, he appeared completely confused. He was going to utter something when my wife, being curious, came out to find out what was going on.
She came and looked at the old man and at once gave a cry of delight. Then she went and touched his feet.
By this time I could know what a terrible blunder had I committed. He was my father- in- law .I was totally lost and stood at a distance like a guilty child. After some time some practical sense dawned upon me and I came and touched his feet.
My father- in-law stayed for a couple of days with us. Immediately after he left, my wife went into a prolonged period of sulking because I failed to recognize her father. Only after I assured her several times that this would never be repeated, she came out of her sulking.
However to prevent me from committing any such blunder in future we decided that we should have an album. In that album we kept the photographs of all her relatives with their names and the status of my relationship with them neatly written below. Then I went through the album everyday as a sort of exercise. Within a few days I was able to remember and recognize the whole lot of her relatives. She also put me to tests several times and was satisfied with my performance. I even could come out with flying colors in practical field. One day when one of her cousin brothers landed at my place I could immediately recognize him by tallying his face with the photograph in my album. And once I recognized him, I conducted myself grandly. My wife was also immensely satisfied. I was much relieved being now pretty sure of my cognitive faculties.
Some days after, my wife went to her home to stay for a month. I was all alone in our house. It was then that the most terrible incident took place.
It was around evening and I was relaxing in the balcony of my quarters. Just at this moment some one pressed the buzzer. I was feeling exhausted after a day’s hard labor in the office and was in no mood to get up. When the buzzer buzzed for the second time I got up reluctantly and went to open the door.
As I opened the door, I found a woman waiting outside. She smiled at me. I tried to place the woman; but in the gathering darkness I could not. She was definitely not one of the relatives of my wife. I guessed she must be one of her friends who was staying in this town and of whom my wife had spoken to me a couple of times earlier.
That woman still kept smiling at me .Then I said, “Sujata (my wife’s name) is not at home. She has gone to her parents. She’ll be back day after tomorrow.”
Hardly had I finished, the woman’s smile vanished and in its place an unspoken sorrow made its mark. She looked at me as tears started trickling down her cheeks.
I knew there was something terribly amiss somewhere. Suddenly a thought struck me. I came closer, peered at her, and discovered that she was, alas, my wife! I took her in my arms and exclaimed, “Darling, Why didn’t you say that you had come?”
My wife cried out, “Need I tell you who I am?”
I felt like a condemned criminal. I had never expected my wife to come on that day and moreover, her photograph was not there in the album. My memory once again played its dirtiest trick on me.
But not to be tricked once again, the next evening I took an enlarged photo of hers, hung it at a prominent place on the wall and wrote below, ‘MY WIFE’.

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Our Neighbourhood Saloon

When Raju opened his ultramodern hairdressing saloon, it was really a big event for our small town. The saloon was perfectly furnished and packed with talcum powders, after-shave lotions, dyeing crèmes and the like.Coloured blow-ups of scantily clad actresses adorned the upper portions of the walls. On the tables lay many film magazines--old and new.
Keeping with the décor of the saloon, Raju was clad in the latest jeans. His long locks fell over his ears unto his shoulders and a coloured scarf hung from his neck in the manner of his favourite film star. Young though he was, he was really superb in his craft. He could have a half an hour’s operation on the crop of your hair and could make a very ugly face a handsome one. Besides he had different styles for different occasions. If you were going to face an interview, he would give your hair a nice oil bath and give it a sound back- brush. If you were going to see your fiancée, he would shampoo your hair and dry it to give you a classic Romeo look. You just tell him the occasion and he would run his imagination along your hair. No wonder, Raju had a big clientele.
The latest acquisition in Raju’s shop was a cassette player. We knew Raju was a great lover of music. He always used to hum a tune while his hands worked with the scissors. We all welcomed the change because we could then hope to have a nice music time at Raju’s saloon.
Raju had cassettes of old as well as new film songs. When any old song in the classic strain such as “Jalte hen jiske liye” was played, Raju’s hands, with the scissors, would move with the slow rhythm of the song. And well, you could resign yourself to it for one full hour till the cassette on one side was fully exhausted of the songs and the sound ceased on the auto-stop. But if any modern number of Himesh Reshmiya or any western pop was played,Raju’s scissors ran merrily dancing along your hair, achieving a glorious haircut within just a couple of minutes.
That day early in the morning as I entered into the saloon, the recorder was blaring out a Michael Jackson number.Annoyed, I asked,”Raju, what’s this cacophony?”
Raju replied with a smile, “Sir, this is pop. These songs are craze in big cities. I have borrowed the cassette from a friend. You will like it, sir.”
I knew I would not like it. But I was happy that the rhythm of the song was very fast and I could confidently look to a quick haircut.
He carried on as I browsed through an old film magazine. The seductive photographs of the film heroines and the spicy gossip about their private lives kept me absorbed.
It was quite sometime before I finished the magazine.Raju’s fingers were still pressing the scissors on my head. I was a bit surprised for I thought that with the fast rhythm of the song, my haircut should have been finished by that time.
I threw the magazine on the table and looked up at the mirror to find Raju profusely sweating with the scissors at my back. He held and swayed his scissors just as a pop singer would hold a guitar on the stage. He seemed to belong to a different world even while he was clipping my hair. And to my horror I found that within this time he had completely minced my hair. I came for a side-dressing and now my glorious crop of hair was gone! In its place were small twigs, as one would find it in a freshly harvested field, and I looked no better than a criminal or a joker.
Desperately I cried out, “Raju, stop.” But Raju was simply in no mood to listen. His body was frenziedly swaying from left to right and his fingers, with the scissors, were gleefully dancing on my head. Seeing no way out, I made a dive towards my left where the cassette recorder was kept and pressed the ‘Stop’ button.
The song stopped abruptly and so did Raju’s fingers. His trance broke and he looked at me helplessly. I demanded in anger, “What have you done to my hair?”
Raju, like a guilty child, implored, “Sir, Sir…”
I knew there was no way to salvage my state of hair. I asked, “Raju, please do one thing. Make a polished shave of all my hair. That way I’ll look like a Buddhist monk, but no more like a crook. Or if some one asks, I can take the plea of a death in the family.
Raju had no way but to oblige me.


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