...it's only words

Memory 1
It’s summer time in Lansdowne. The hydrangeas are in full blue bloom. The bumble bees are bumbling along. There’s a nice warm sun smiling outside the house. Inside, temperatures are close to freezing. My 18-year-old long haired, long nosed cousin, referred to in family circles as The Genius (he shares a birth date with me – few years removed - but that’s about it), is fingering a copy of Times of India in Nanaji’s torture chamber with the multiple glass windows that overlooks the red-roofed houses of lesser mortals further down the slope. Nanaji (wrapped in his thick-as-a-carpet tweed housecoat, secured around his ample waist by a tasseled rope) is sprawled at a gravity-defying 120 degrees in his easy chair. He looks at me from behind glasses most definitely thicker than the window pane behind him. “Bhaisahab ka jootha khaya karo, shayad un jaise ban sako”, he says with biting sarcasm. I have effortlessly managed to score zero out of ten in his quick fire round of news based questions which (immediately after my humiliating failure) The Genius has answered staccato while simultaneously breathing on his fingernails. Taking a quick step forward I whip off Nanaji’s tassled housecoat rope and twist it a few times around that long neck (in my mind). In fact, I slink out of the room, tail tucked between the legs.

Memory 2 
Another summer vacation. Same scene as Memory 1 with Nanaji sprawled on easy chair at similar tilt, a natty tweed cap pulled low over his forehead. The Genius is missing but his arrival in Lansdowne is awaited. To my delight he is late – a crime second only to bad handwriting/ not being able to spell Nadia Comaneci's surname in Nanaji’s Book of Criminal Procedure. Eventually, he arrives.
Nanaji: Kyun bhai, tumhari ghadi mein kai baj rahe hain? 
A big clock hanging right beside Nani’s favourite calendar decorated with Shivji in tiger skin, a crescent moon in his knotted hair and the Ganga sprouting from somewhere around, shows the time as 4 pm, many hours  beyond when The Genius should have arrived home.
 Kill Joy: Nanaji, ham Kotdwar se paidal hi aa gaye, socha bus tikat ke do rupaye bacha lenge. (I walked so that I could save Rs 2 on the bus ticket)
There are shock waves in the room – the unbelievable jerk has walked 20 plus kms to save two rupees. We (riffraff of school-going cousins hanging around in the hope that The Genius is going to get a dressing down today) look at each other sadly. Hope dies silently. From the glint in Nanaji’s nau-nambar ke chashme I know he hears deafening APPLAUSE. The snake victoriously slithers off to the kitchen to swallow a samosa sandwich and some jalebi dunked in milk. “Bhaisahab se kuch seekho. Paisa ped par nahin ugta, uski kadr samjho,” (Money does not grow on trees, realize its value, learn from him) says Nanaji, scalding the rest of the brood of us idiot spendthrifts with a nasty half smile. Kill Joy emerges from the kitchen wiping a spot of sweet chutni from his chin, licks it off his finger and heads back for the torture chamber balancing a cup of steaming hot tea for Nanaji.
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If your tastes run into sadism and you were enjoying these painful episodes, the fun is over my friend. I’m going to stop reminiscing right here because if I continue to squint my eyes and think back on all the childhood memories I have of Cousin Kill Joy, I leave myself unprotected against nightmares that  wake me up middle of the night with gaspy breath and sweaty palms. He was this infuriating genius who knew it all (from who was India’s first Vice President to the words of the Preamble to how many spokes there are in the Ashoka Chakra to complicated maths equations to world politics to which record the Carpenters were coming out with next). He was this God on Earth reborn in our family to vanquish morons like me by stopping their air supply by having their noses rubbed in the mud in Nanaji’s bageecha. He was this incredible superman who would lead us gaggle of cousins on calf muscle knotting walks to the Pani ki Tanki, half way to Jaiharikhal; get us back in time for some “baagwani” and then trail us to the dining table for a brunch of manduve ki roti and hara namak. And while the rest of us scrambled to cover the butter on our plates with our rotis, he would be found eating just that when Nanaji came spying on us to ensure healthy zero cholesterol diets, his laathi clicking on the wooden floor.

Kill Joy was a pain to grow up with. I wouldn’t wish an elder brother like him, even on a sworn enemy, unless I really hated them. Nothing I did was good enough (not that I ever did much), never could I match up to this gifted genius, never was I as bright, as quick witted or as enterprising as him. Never could I get as many gold medals in Physics. Though I’d like to blame the last on the fact that I never had physics as a subject. He was even forgiven that horrible Vinod Khanna meets Mithun Chakravarty hairdo he kept through his growing years which I’m sure made Nanaji shudder privately though he did get the flak once for keeping his top shirt button open with a “kya tum lafange ho?” which made me walk around with a song on my lips for a week. But other than that I don’t think The Genius ever made a mistake in life. The world came to a standstill because he was studying for his IAS prelims. Even my animal loving mom smiled indulgently when he cold bloodedly boiled the eggs of roosting pigeons to pay them back for crapping on his books. He was evil. He was a pain. He was an ugly blot on my beautiful childhood.

But like they say, time heals all wounds. Some years back, he called from half-way across the world to patiently explain to me how planes were changed, and assured me I wouldn’t get left behind anywhere, when stomach churning nervous I was making my first foreign trip alone. And then I remembered that he had bought me a Cross writing instrument and tossed it at me casually when I was thinking of becoming a writer once upon a time. He has indulged in other acts of repentance that I wouldn’t want to embarrass him with now. But in the past few years, I’ve noticed that when I have a life altering question to ask he is often the one I mail my query to, confident in the knowledge that I will get a quick mail back, irrespective of his work responsibilities or time zones. Believe it or not, I’m almost fond of him now. The fact that he reads my blog dutifully might have something to do with that though. 

Bhaisahab ka jootha khaya karo, shayad un jaise ban sako: Eat his leftovers, maybe you'll become like him; Kyun bhai, tumhari ghadi mein kai baj rahe hain: Brother, what's the kind by your watch; nau-nambar ke chashme: Number nine reading glasses

In the small hill town of Kotdwar in Pauri Garhwal (that you probably know well by now - since you’ve been inflicted upon with my blogs for a while) this is the fortnight of the cross-dressers. In these lazy hills, known for their lazy men and hard-working women with alabaster complexions and frown-lined foreheads (you can well understand why), now is the time when  the bhullus and the bhaijis (younger and elder brothers) stub out their bidi butts, pull up their red woolen mojaas and with a robust Bol Siyapati Ram Chandra ki Jai get down to performing the Pahadi Ramlila.

Over the years, men have been playing female characters in this grand epic that spoilsport Vedic researchers now claim  is complete fiction. Come October, and almost divinely-inspired, they raise their deep baritones to high tenors; and with delicious flutters of kajal-laced eyelashes and tantalizing turns of shaved waists, they don the long-haired wigs and err.. fake bosoms and get down to playing every female character in the Ramlila –  from simpering Sita to crafty Kaikaye to Manthara to Mandodari. To the beats of the dholak and the strains of the harmonium; reciting poetry that cannot find a match anywhere else in the world (Hey Ram tumhare kehne se, ek jhagda mol liya maine), they flaunt their sequined saris and red-lipsticked mouths, dab generous circles of rouge on bristly powdered cheeks and step into the skirts of some of the most famous female characters in Hindu mythology.

Far away from the big cities with their multi-entertainment options, our small towns find their own kind of fun. The Ramlila, with its numerous attractions – from family values to human failing, from love to lust, from jealousy to devotion, from cowardice to courage and last but certainly not the least, the dark repercussions of fooling around with another man’s wife – covers a gamut of human behaviour that no Bollywood potboiler or television soap can ever hope to match. No wonder then that all considerations of caste and class are forgotten in otherwise orthodox Kotdwar where Thokdaar saab doesn’t mix around with lesser mortals and takes it as a personal insult if people have not bowed their heads the mandatory 15 degrees and folded their hands to say Namashkaar. Post-dinner, almost everybody trudges faithfully down to the Ramlila maidan where hot roasted peanuts sell from shaky old carts and monkey-capped vendors deal out hot steaming cups of chai in ribbed glasses and gur ki gajak on a snipped off piece of yesterday’s newspaper. Thokdaar saab, Brigadier saab, DIG saab and others sahabs in the privileged class get plastic chairs to sit on while the rest of us bring our own mats and durries from home or squat on the grass or the crumbing stone wall under the twinkling stars, companionably sharing gossip and chanas.

When the love-struck Suparnakha quirks her eyebrow and swings her hips to entice Ram and/or Lakshman (often to the tunes of the latest Bollywood numbers – from Sexy, sexy sexy mujhe log bolen once upon a time to Main hun Jalebi Bai, sab puchte hain mujhse tu kaun des see aayi – with the crowds dutifully roaring Lanka) she is the ultimate item girl with a bust size, sex appeal and an attitude that can put Mallika Sherawat to shame. So what, if behind the stuffed and firmly secured brassier she is actually a he. The whistles and cat calls from the high testosterone Romeos sitting in the anonymity of darkness are enough to make the devout old ladies bristle and the rest of us giggle in delight. Besides the actual tale with its numerous teachings - the most important being "victory of good over evil" that US presidents battling self-created demons are touting only now, the Ramlila experience holds out a few lessons of its own. That gods we worship in Hinduism, a staggering 330 million in all, might never have existed but they represent individual human qualities that society has always aspired to have -  like courage and devotion (Laxman), family values (Ram), devotion and morality (Sita), fearlessness (Durga) and so on and so forth.   

The other interesting observation, that new age film directors are homing on only now, is that grey shades in a character make it more interesting. So while old ladies with covered heads dutifully drop coins into the arati thali with a fluttering flamed diya that is passed around every hour and little kids with naughty eyes keep a sly lookout for loose coins that can be picked up from the thali if no one’s watching), the biggest attraction of the dance drama is another man. The undisputed crowd-puller is the larger-than-life, dark-eyed, magnetic bad boy of the Ramayana – Lankapati Ravana of the swaggering walk, the wide chest, the reckless attitude and the booming reverberating voice. The flashing evil in his eyes when he spots the lovely Sita, his sheer audacity when he decides to pick her up, just like that, and his relentless pursuit to win her affections, are a class apart.  It’s something that no modern villain can hold a candle to. When the towering Ravana makes a grand, glamorous entry on the day of Sita haran with his swishing yellow satin dhoti and flashing black eyes,  the crowds swoon and sigh. They hold on to their breaths and that scalding-hot chai ki pyali as his evil unfolds and though every kid knows how it will all end, every generation watches with bated breath and continues to flock to the Ramlila maidan for Ravan’s debut appearance year after year. The entertainment goes on. And it will go on till the day those multiplex movie halls and mega malls eyeing the rural market leave it alone. I just wish they would pass us by because we are having more fun watching the cross-dressers under the open skies than they can ever hope to match.

Mojaas: socks; bol Siyapati Ranchandra ki jai: all hail Sita's husband Ram; Hey Ram tumhare kehne se, ek jhagda mol liya maine: Hey Ram, I took on this fight because you told me to; Namashkaar: Namaste; maidan: ground; Sexy mujhe log bolen: people call me sexy; main hun Jalebi Bai, sab puchte hain mujhse tu kaun des se aayi: folks call me Jalebi Bai and ask me which country I come from; chai ki pyali: cup of tea)