An Ordinary Life Read online

  During the interval, a vendor walked in between the hall’s chairs—as was normal in movie theatres back then—selling Campa Cola. At that tender age, I simply assumed it was for free and ran up to him and asked for a bottle of the precious, elixir-like black bubbles. Naturally, the seller asked me for money. I was surprised. It was the very first time in my life that I figured out the concept of money, that it was a form of exchange. You had to give it to get whatever goods you wanted.

  It was a life-changing moment but I did not have the bandwidth to mull over it any longer because the interval was over and the film reel rolled again and I got sucked right back into the world of Jaggu Dada. Without realizing it, I mugged up the character’s dance steps.

  There was a strange myth in our area that Shatrughan Sinha was a kasai, and that his famous scars came from his days of being a butcher. Obviously this is not true, but it shows the reach the star had even in remote areas; his impact was legendary enough for rumours and myths to be conjured up and believed in full fervour as facts.

  Many years later, Sinha Saheb happened to watch Manjhi: The Mountain Man and said that I not only represented the essence of his home state Bihar beautifully, but was also ‘the discovery of the century’. I cannot describe the ecstasy of this full circle for me. I have met him a few times and he is very fond of me but he has absolutely no idea that the first film I ever watched properly in a theatre was one of his films. Or that his famous film Kalicharan too had left a great impression on me and my childhood. Sinha Saheb sowed seeds of acting in me, before I even knew that I wanted to be an actor.

  * * *

  During that wedding in Delhi, I noticed what a huge deal shaadi bands were and the enormous impact they had. Right at the very front of the wedding band was often a lead singer belting out popular songs. An assortment of instrumentalists followed him. Around him, people swayed to the rhythms of this song and other people loved watching the dancers. There was this certain ‘wow’ factor, this certain earthy magic to these dancers that was compelling viewing.

  Later when I returned to Budhana and performed the same steps that Sinha Saheb did as Jaggu Dada in the film, again I noticed that people loved to watch others dancing. It left a deep mark on me; it was as if I was unconsciously taking mental notes at that tender age when one does not even know what identity is.

  I gravitated towards dancing. Whenever I heard a dhol play at weddings or functions, I’d show up with some other kids and we would start dancing. It did not matter whose wedding or function it was. What mattered was that there would be money thrown and I had become a champion at picking up the little piles of rupees that were being dropped all over the place like confetti.

  * * *

  Another person who left a deep impact on me was the local dafliwala. He walked through all the lanes of the mohalla playing his dafli, a tambourine-like instrument, and singing in his beautiful voice and later asking for money from passers-by. The girls kept watching him. And I kept watching the girls. Seeing how mesmerized they were by his performance, I realized that this humble-looking, gentle and slightly effeminate performer had some X factor in him, something that touched people and made them go ‘wow’. At that point in my childhood—I was about five or six years old—there was no one more fascinating to me in all of Budhana than the dafliwala. I followed him everywhere, right to the outskirts, where he lived. I became so good at following him that I became a sort of GPS and using parameters like tracing his voice and the distance the voice came from, the side it came from, I could literally trace his exact location.

  In my eyes, he had achieved so much! It was from those days of stalking him that I knew I wanted to be a performer, just like him.

  * * *

  When I was about seven, the huge house right next to ours was let out for rent. The new tenant had four or five daughters, all of whom were exquisitely beautiful, with very fair complexion. They were evenly spaced out in age. One of them was about sixteen or seventeen, another a couple of years younger, the other a couple of years younger, and so on.

  The fairest of them all became my favourite. I wanted to impress her; I wanted her to think highly of me. So I got a fairness cream, which in a tiny, far-flung village like ours, was a duplicate version of the famous Fair and Lovely cream. Of course, it did not make me fair. On the contrary, it stood out like a light layer of white paint on my dark face, which made her burst into peals of laughter.

  Once, the father of these lovely lasses had to visit somebody, I believe a relative, in a neighbouring village for some days. The girls were all alone. Remember, ours was a village in the land of gehu, ganna aur gun (wheat, sugar cane and gun). It made women feel safe if they were in the company of a man. So I was asked to stay with them.

  It was a winter night. There were charpoys scattered everywhere, with one girl lying here, another there. I went to lie on one charpoy, near the youngest one. Of course, I was thrilled. My heart longed to sleep near her but then I was put near the oldest, the teenager didi, under the same quilt. For the first time a new feeling was aroused in me: I felt the concept of ‘touch’, something I had never felt before, and I was like ‘fuck!’ So I stuck closer to her and slept, with a feeling that this would be the most beautiful sleep of my life. She was about seventeen; but she had no such thoughts. To her, I was a child, almost a little brother. I knew this. So later, whenever she would come to our house, which was all the time, my head would hang in shame for the wrong I only knew I had done.

  They shifted houses soon after.

  But going down memory lane, I remember another incident.

  The third of the daughters was extremely fond of singing and dancing to Hindi film songs. In fact, she was rather filmi herself. One evening, Ammi had gone to visit one of our relatives next door. So we were by ourselves for a few hours. This girl, she shut the door. I was there with my brother and another boy from the neighbourhood. She was there with a couple of girls, including a friend. She locked the door, removed her burqa and danced and sang for us. It was a popular number, a Hindi classic: ‘Jhumka Gira re, Bareilly ke Bazaar Mein’. She performed with complete ‘heroine-like’ dramatic expressions and gestures. This was an act of rebellion but it was so innocent and so joyful.

  She was about fourteen and I was about eight or nine. Par tab hi se dil mein dhadakne shuru ho gayee thi. (From then on, my heart began to flutter.)

  When they left and moved to another house, we were all very sad. There was so much fun and laughter when they were there. Their mirth, their chirpiness brought about a spring-like ambience, as if life was an endless festival. In their wake, all of that was replaced with emptiness. I’ve noticed since then that wherever girls are present, there is ronak, cheer, jollies, jubilation. Is it that girls are attracted to ronak, so they are present wherever there is ronak? Or is it that the ronak is created because of their presence? I have not been able to figure out which way that equation works.

  * * *

  I had an extraordinary aunt, whom I affectionately called Tai Amma. She was a widow with half a dozen daughters, each one exquisitely beautiful. A few of them got married and lived happily ever after in Pakistan. One got married in Delhi, at the Nizamuddin dargah. Actually, she is the unofficial queen of the Nizamuddin area in Delhi. All the offerings from the Nizamuddin dargah go to their household. So they live like royalty, without having to earn a penny. In fact, according to conjecture the very name Nizamuddin most likely comes from their ancestral lineage.

  Tai Amma herself was stunning, timelessly beautiful like a thin willow tree, 5 feet 11 inches tall, and had flowing white hair and a thick neck. She was striking in her attire of a widow’s white burqa made of cotton, with a slit in the front.

  There was nobody quite like her in the world, or at least none that I had met. Her storytelling skills were unparalleled. The kind of command she had over words, over Hindi and Urdu, and the kind of stories she narrated were incredible.

  ‘Arrey, Nawab ki Bahu!’ she would call my moth
er and recite tales on our terrace as we kids lay around napping or pretending to nap.

  ‘Arrey, Nawab ki Bahu, do you know what happened today when I woke up at four in the morning?’

  Then she would take a long pause.

  ‘Do you know what happened?’

  Another pause, a shorter one.

  ‘The moon, the stars were all shining brightly. In the ebony sky, the moon resembled milk and it seemed like this milky moon was staring at me, just at me. You won’t believe it, Nawab ki Bahu, but those stars, they came so close to me; it was as if they were touching me. I tingled and blushed so much due to this intimacy that I almost became water. While I was doing wazoo—the morning ablutions of washing the hands and face—a star came and sat on my peshani, my sleeve. You won’t believe it, Nawab ki Bahu, you won’t believe it. I could not make up my mind. Main sitare ko dekhoon ki apne aap ko dekhoon? Main sitare ko dekhoon ki apne aap ko dekhoon, Nawab ki Bahu? (Should I look at the star? Should I look at myself? Should I look at the star? Should I look at myself, Nawab’s Wife?) I couldn’t help but blush. You see, Nawab ki Bahu, you won’t believe me but you must. Because I have not met a star like this before in my whole life. An exotic fragrance emerged from this star . . . you won’t believe me, Nawab ki Bahu, but I swear it was so, Nawab ki Bahu.’ Another long pause.

  Meanwhile, we were dying of suspense: ‘Tai Amma, batao, kya kiya sitare ne? Phir kya hua?’ (Tai Amma, tell us, what did the star do? What happened next?) You won’t believe it but she spent two hours just describing the interaction between her and the star. From midnight to 3 a.m., we were just there listening to her. This was storytelling at its best, and it came naturally to her in her day-to-day conversation.

  She was so poetic, so elegant. She also sang. Her brother was a renowned lyricist and an amazing singer. Today’s best singers would fail in front of their singing. The brother was about seven feet tall, and dressed impeccably in a sharp sherwani and a half-coat—he had an overwhelming presence. He died recently, about eight years ago. He is not known today, like most local folk singers. But several big poets and lyricists copied him, stole his ghazals and established themselves in Bollywood.

  Quran Khaani was a common part of my childhood. About forty ladies from the neighbourhood would gather together for little functions, celebrating a child’s birth or the renovation of a house, and scriptures from the Holy Quran would be read. Tai Amma was excellent at reading Quran Khaani, but like dessert comes last, the best part was that afterwards she would sing ghazals that she had written herself. All the women would huddle together; even those who were not there at the function would gather on terraces nearby, as if a big celebrity was there, to listen to her melodious voice. They were stunned, transported as if hit by magic; that’s how her voice was.

  Years later, Tai Amma crossed over to the other side, leaving much emptiness behind where she had once been. Her house lay empty too, and consequently up for sale, with several aggressive buyers lined up, with one particularly so. Fortunately, I managed to buy it in time. Every time I visit, it reminds me of her extraordinariness. If I could capture even 5 per cent of Tai Amma’s calibre, of her poetics, I could do wonders in my acting.

  * * *

  Tai Amma had impeccable grace. But the person I was the most enamoured by was a woman who was crassness personified. She had many children but was called the Mother of Sammi, her eldest daughter. We called her Sammi ki Ammi. She was a Qureshi which meant that she was a Kasaani, the caste of butchers. Caste might dictate social behaviour but by those days many people had opted for professions different from what their caste dictated. Her husband, for instance, was not a kasai but in the business of constructing houses which we called chinnai. He was a thorough gentleman, pleasant and mild-mannered. His wife though was a massive fighter cock. Whenever she fought with him, she would climb up to her terrace and put on a very dramatic show, which would continue at the very least for half an hour. If she was offended by a neighbour, she would go to their house and up to their terrace and loudly pick up a fight for the whole world to see and the whole world did see. She would scream lewdly with exaggerated gestures and shout animatedly something to the tune of ‘Oh, your husband walks like this!’ and do a caricature of a limp. Or she might say, ‘One day your husband stopped me, asking where I was going. What the hell! I gave him a piece of my mind.’

  Everybody judged her for her vulgarity and meanness. And yet the very moment they heard the first few words or saw her on the terrace, they would all gather for entertainment which easily lasted some thirty to forty-five minutes. I never judged her. I was way too much in awe of her, way too mesmerized to judge. To me, she was a performer par excellence. What presentation! What dialogue delivery! What body language! Sometimes she even threw in an impromptu dance. Every single time her performance absolutely blew my mind. Looking at the hypnotized faces around me, I realized for the very first time what performance was, what entertainment was. And the power of performance to put people into a trance. And also, how different this was from Tai Amma’s poetics.

  Mass entertainment is not just song and dance. One’s performance itself should be entertainment. Folk artists knew this and mastered the art. A half an hour’s play they could stretch to three hours, sometimes four, depending on how the audience was responding.

  We called Sammi ki Ammi the local akhbaar, though tabloid would be a more fitting word for her gossipmongering. She would tattle about this one to that one, about that one to another one and continue with this chain until she had covered almost all of the women in the community. She was also an expert at psychology. She knew the Achilles heel of every single person in Budhana; she knew what made them jealous. Whenever she came to our house, I’d notice that she had done her homework and come prepared. Like she knew that Ammi was slightly jealous of my chacha’s daughter. So the moment she entered, she would start bitching about this person, thereby establishing an instant camaraderie with Ammi every single time.

  ‘Arrey, Nawab ki Bahu, listen, I went there, to her house, and you know what? You know what she said about you? My goodness, you won’t believe it! . . . Her sons are all loafers and her husband is totally useless . . . I told them not to talk too much. I know Nawab ki Bahu, she is not like this, like you guys.’

  Naturally, Ammi’s heart warmed at once, because at least somebody got her. ‘Tea? Have some tea,’ Ammi would say, declaring rather than asking, as she walked towards the kitchen. ‘Yes, yes, I’ll have some,’ Sammi ki Ammi would respond happily and continue with her gossip. ‘. . . Listen no, so I told them I know Nawab ki Bahu very well . . .’

  Then when she went to my chacha’s daughter’s house, she would gossip about my mother. Everybody was very well aware that she did this. She was our akhbaar, after all. But they all awaited her arrival eagerly because she was the best entertainment. She loved to chew paan and oddly also coal. In fact, she had a deep craving, an addiction almost, for chewing coal that was left over in the chulha and had had ample time to cool down after the last meal had been cooked. The moment she came into somebody’s house, she would sneak in a chunk of cold coal from the stove into her mouth, not unlike somebody would place a betel leaf and then begin chattering away.

  Somehow, this never affected her health. She lived well into her eighties and passed away only recently.

  * * *

  Sukka Pehelwan earned his moniker from his looks: he was gaunt, skeletal almost, but yet so skilled and strong in a way no wrestler could match. During Eid, he would collect money from everybody. ‘Everybody’ were the fifteen to sixteen kids in the mohalla who were suddenly rich thanks to the Eid money they had received, which they now wanted to invest in something. He would then ask us to meet him at the village garbage dump, which we called kuriya. He would take us through not the normal route, but an array of strange, shady shortcuts. Like the mice followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin in the German legend, we too followed Sukka Pehelwan as if in a trance. After all, he was going to invest our we
alth in our favourite treat: he would help us watch a film.

  You see, he had this uncanny talent for getting tickets by negotiating through big crowds—I have not yet seen anybody else who can pull it off like that. Tickets in black were ridiculously expensive; obviously, we were not in any position to afford them. He would shoot right through the wild throng and put his hand through the tiny ticket window. It was of the same teeny size and shape as the house of Jerry in the Tom and Jerry cartoon series. Some seven or eight hands would be inside that window at the same time. Sukka Pehelwan would then return gallantly with the tickets, swimming through the crowd, his hands bearing scratches and blood from the battle. Each of us would pay him 50 paise extra for this extraordinary service. Only he could get us the tickets. Without him, we wouldn’t have been able to watch the film. He was only a few years older than us, around sixteen, while we were all between eleven and thirteen. Everybody respected his talent. He was more than our champion, he was our hero.

  Today, Sukka Pehelwan sells fruits and vegetables on a thela. If he sees me, he hollers and cuts me a piece of the sweetest mango he has and feeds me with his own hands. Or a piece of the sweetest guava, laced deliciously with salt. He loves feeding me, that’s how he shows his love. Every time I visit, he nags me to come to his house right away for a meal. Unfortunately, I cannot accept his impromptu invitations every time though I wish I could. But I have to say, I have not eaten a tastier meal in my life, in any corner of the world, than in his house. His wife has magic in her hands. He is a very poor man with about a dozen children. One of his daughters has just graduated. Today too, they would rather spend money on me, and their pride is so strong that they will not accept any sort of monetary help from me. Their love and honesty melt my heart and bring tears to my eyes every time.