Something I found googling for Professor Arora's graffitti. Alas! he wasn't there
Once upon a time when there was no satellite television or glossy magazines with skimpily-clad size zero beauties causing the phenomenon of drooling in male buyers (only staid stuff like Saptahik Hindustan, Reader's Digest and Manohar Kahaniyan - OK this sometimes had skimpily clad beauties though more stout than size zero); there was Professor Arora. And there was wall graffitti.
If I got into a time capsule and went back 25 plus years I would reach a time zone when my favourite memories are of looking out through the rusty iron barred windows of a train swiftly uncoiling across sugarcane fields and mango orchards like a massive red serpent leaping to swallow its prey. Right through my growing years, every single summer holiday (barring one when we flew to Leh to meet my dad, who was posted there, and got to see Pangong Tso lake and the inside of an aeroplane) we would make a train journey from Agra to Delhi (with a break for moong dal pakodas at Mathura station) and then to Kotdwar. From there, a bus took us to Lansdowne where Nanaji waited on his favourite chair with a mocking smile and a general knowledge quiz (the reason why Kaun Banega Crorepati and Mr Bachchan make me go misty-eyed). We would board the Mussorie Express from Old Delhi Railway Station in the night where - if we reached in time/the train was late - we would get to dump home cooked food for hot puries that were being fried by a vendor on the platform and spicy alu ki sabzi that was eaten out of a bowl made of dry leaves stitched together by dry twigs. And then, my brother and I would fight for turns at sitting near the window to feel the wind on our noses and watch time whiz past.
On our way back from Kotdwar (depressed and gloomy since we had to get back to school, had done very poorly in Nanaji's GK tests and had also not completed our holiday homework) we would know we were approaching Delhi (and hence doom) from the writing on the wall. Professor Arora of 28 Regarpura, Karolbagh, was right there innovatively advertising his matrimonial services (at a time when - as far as I know, though more learned readers would know better - there was no advertising either) on the dirty brick walls near the jhuggi clusters that had come up on the outskirts of the city.
Between the silent camaraderie of entire rows of early morning trackside squatters (who my Japanese sister-in-law naively mistook for men doing yoga on her first India visit), fat black buffaloes wallowing in pools of stagnated water with birds taking free rides on their backs, and naked brown kids running around waving at train passengers; Professor Arora would be right there (in spirit) imploring parents of unmarried people to meet him just once. With his tempting offer of Rishtey hi Rishtey (roughly translated as matrimonial alliances and more matrimonial alliances) he would try and coax them with an endearing Bas ek baar mil to len (C'mon, let's meet at least once). His complete address and phone number would be scribbled right there in thick white paint but alas there was no portrait which always left me wondering what this marketing genius looked like. I always imagined him as a stately old man with back combed white hair and a French beard, dressed in an elegant brown bandgala suit with a red handkerchief peeping out of his pocket. But you never know. He may well have been a paan-chewing, zarda-spitting, pot-bellied dirty old man in an up-folded lungi and yellowing vest (depending upon just how well or badly business was doing). Whether he provided perfect marriage partners or not, I don’t know, but back then he certainly provided dignity to the fading red walls across the Yamuna with snatches of untidily slapped on cement binding bricks together and, much to the relief of my embarrassed mother, took the attention of her curious pre teen kids away from seedier advertisement screaming about strange weaknesses and secret diseases (kamzori and gupt rog) which were meant only to be discussed (if at all) in hushed whispers in civilized circles.
Much water (read polluted muck) has flown in the Yamuna since then and I have seen a bit of graffiti across a few other walls, notably London where I spent precious time ogling open mouthed at the unbelievable attractions and cell numbers of buxom blonde babes scribbed inside red phone booths and also Northern Ireland where angry walls bore the brunt of the Catholic Protestant divide and took nasty digs at George Bush. Some areas of South Delhi these days bear some beautiful graffiti left behind by anonymous artists who go around with their spray paint when the city sleeps. And off and on through these 40 plus years of existence I have been exposed to the most scientifically-labelled biology diagrams scratched cave man style (possibly with fingernails - you obviously can't stop an artist when the artistic urge urges) on dirty public toilet walls. But absolutely nothing compares to the mark Prof Arora has left on my mind in its impressionable days with his endless scrawls on approaching walls hitting me in exploding 4 D right inside my second class train compartment, with the stench of rotting carcasses and ..err other stuff floating in the air. Not even surrepticious invitations from vaidhs and hakims and Yunani dawakhanas offering treatment for phee-sirs (fissures), bawaseer (i confess i don't know what that is) and naamardgi (i can guess what that is but i bet so can you) by Ayurvedic means or medicines made from dubious animal parts (like sande ka tel - whatever that might be) come a patch on it.
And now that we have dug out this old skeleton for the sake of this blog I promise you that on one of my visits to Delhi (if i get time off from the malls and my 100 plus relatives and friends), I shall go looking for 28 Regarpura, Karolbagh, to see if I can locate Professor Arora or his junior business partners who might still be working hard at keeping business kicking. Afterall people are still getting married. Ek baar mil hi len!
Puri: fried bread; Alu ki sabzi: potato curry; Rishtey hi rishtey: Matches and more matches; Bas ek baar mil toh len: Let’s meet at least once; vaidhs and hakims: doctors (connotation is that they are quacks) naamardgi: impotence
If I got into a time capsule and went back 25 plus years I would reach a time zone when my favourite memories are of looking out through the rusty iron barred windows of a train swiftly uncoiling across sugarcane fields and mango orchards like a massive red serpent leaping to swallow its prey. Right through my growing years, every single summer holiday (barring one when we flew to Leh to meet my dad, who was posted there, and got to see Pangong Tso lake and the inside of an aeroplane) we would make a train journey from Agra to Delhi (with a break for moong dal pakodas at Mathura station) and then to Kotdwar. From there, a bus took us to Lansdowne where Nanaji waited on his favourite chair with a mocking smile and a general knowledge quiz (the reason why Kaun Banega Crorepati and Mr Bachchan make me go misty-eyed). We would board the Mussorie Express from Old Delhi Railway Station in the night where - if we reached in time/the train was late - we would get to dump home cooked food for hot puries that were being fried by a vendor on the platform and spicy alu ki sabzi that was eaten out of a bowl made of dry leaves stitched together by dry twigs. And then, my brother and I would fight for turns at sitting near the window to feel the wind on our noses and watch time whiz past.
On our way back from Kotdwar (depressed and gloomy since we had to get back to school, had done very poorly in Nanaji's GK tests and had also not completed our holiday homework) we would know we were approaching Delhi (and hence doom) from the writing on the wall. Professor Arora of 28 Regarpura, Karolbagh, was right there innovatively advertising his matrimonial services (at a time when - as far as I know, though more learned readers would know better - there was no advertising either) on the dirty brick walls near the jhuggi clusters that had come up on the outskirts of the city.
Between the silent camaraderie of entire rows of early morning trackside squatters (who my Japanese sister-in-law naively mistook for men doing yoga on her first India visit), fat black buffaloes wallowing in pools of stagnated water with birds taking free rides on their backs, and naked brown kids running around waving at train passengers; Professor Arora would be right there (in spirit) imploring parents of unmarried people to meet him just once. With his tempting offer of Rishtey hi Rishtey (roughly translated as matrimonial alliances and more matrimonial alliances) he would try and coax them with an endearing Bas ek baar mil to len (C'mon, let's meet at least once). His complete address and phone number would be scribbled right there in thick white paint but alas there was no portrait which always left me wondering what this marketing genius looked like. I always imagined him as a stately old man with back combed white hair and a French beard, dressed in an elegant brown bandgala suit with a red handkerchief peeping out of his pocket. But you never know. He may well have been a paan-chewing, zarda-spitting, pot-bellied dirty old man in an up-folded lungi and yellowing vest (depending upon just how well or badly business was doing). Whether he provided perfect marriage partners or not, I don’t know, but back then he certainly provided dignity to the fading red walls across the Yamuna with snatches of untidily slapped on cement binding bricks together and, much to the relief of my embarrassed mother, took the attention of her curious pre teen kids away from seedier advertisement screaming about strange weaknesses and secret diseases (kamzori and gupt rog) which were meant only to be discussed (if at all) in hushed whispers in civilized circles.
Much water (read polluted muck) has flown in the Yamuna since then and I have seen a bit of graffiti across a few other walls, notably London where I spent precious time ogling open mouthed at the unbelievable attractions and cell numbers of buxom blonde babes scribbed inside red phone booths and also Northern Ireland where angry walls bore the brunt of the Catholic Protestant divide and took nasty digs at George Bush. Some areas of South Delhi these days bear some beautiful graffiti left behind by anonymous artists who go around with their spray paint when the city sleeps. And off and on through these 40 plus years of existence I have been exposed to the most scientifically-labelled biology diagrams scratched cave man style (possibly with fingernails - you obviously can't stop an artist when the artistic urge urges) on dirty public toilet walls. But absolutely nothing compares to the mark Prof Arora has left on my mind in its impressionable days with his endless scrawls on approaching walls hitting me in exploding 4 D right inside my second class train compartment, with the stench of rotting carcasses and ..err other stuff floating in the air. Not even surrepticious invitations from vaidhs and hakims and Yunani dawakhanas offering treatment for phee-sirs (fissures), bawaseer (i confess i don't know what that is) and naamardgi (i can guess what that is but i bet so can you) by Ayurvedic means or medicines made from dubious animal parts (like sande ka tel - whatever that might be) come a patch on it.
And now that we have dug out this old skeleton for the sake of this blog I promise you that on one of my visits to Delhi (if i get time off from the malls and my 100 plus relatives and friends), I shall go looking for 28 Regarpura, Karolbagh, to see if I can locate Professor Arora or his junior business partners who might still be working hard at keeping business kicking. Afterall people are still getting married. Ek baar mil hi len!
Puri: fried bread; Alu ki sabzi: potato curry; Rishtey hi rishtey: Matches and more matches; Bas ek baar mil toh len: Let’s meet at least once; vaidhs and hakims: doctors (connotation is that they are quacks) naamardgi: impotence
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