There are memories/ histories and recollections which need to be written down.
This is one of them… a sort of ongoing process of (re)discovering – literally, as one excavates those memories - how one became what keeps on becoming…
One of the significant (and implicitly moulding) influences in my early teenage days was my grandfather.
An ardent Theosophist (someone who hobnobbed with Annie Besant), a teacher. His career (as we call it now) ranged from being private tutor to the JK Singhania’s son to being the Principal of the Theosophical Society School, Kamachha, Varanasi… (he resigned from the Singhania’s tutorship because he resented being treated as an ‘employee’ and not as a teacher – a parallel which I find in my father’s resignation from being the Modi’s personal physician in ‘40s!)
My grandfather’s principles also led to his rather shaky career path - and apparently, from what I could gather, also resulted in some tumultuous/ insecure upbringing of my uncles… some who never forgave him for that!)...
In any case, he came into my life when I was around 12-13. My grandmother had expired in ’63; he had stayed with one of my uncles in Delhi, and then came to stay with us in Faizabad/Lucknow in late-‘60s/ early-‘70s, where my father was posted then.
Babuji – as my grandfather was called – had lost his eye-sight by then. Looking back, I always think that this can be the worse thing which can happen to a teacher, whose only life-line has been what he reads.
But he picked up with life as it unfolded for him – and with a gusto!
His only contact with the rest of the world was a transistor/radio… and through that he picked up and mastered things/ events which were quite alien to his previous life…
… we used to have a peon, Tulsi, who was deputed to take care of him (ah, the feudal bureaucratic set-up!).. and Babuji, who would intently listen to ‘Krishi Darshan’, and will have pretty educated discussions on agriculture with Tulsi...
… for a person, whose life was pretty cognitive/ideological, Babuji picked up (through the commentaries on the transistor) the intricacies of positions in cricket (e.g., mid-leg, gulley, etc.)… and the mysterious ways in which tennis scores are counted in Wimbledon…
I learnt all these from him – from a blind person, who had never known these spheres of life (maybe have despised them too!)
I used to be his ‘personal secretary’ then. I would read out the letters (so many!) he would receive, and take dictation (on postcards and inlands) to respond… that ‘peek-in’ to his life, relationships and conversation too was a learning for life
As his ‘personal secy’, I remember, I also used to read out novels to him – chapter-by-chapter/day-by-day….. and that’s how I guess I ended up reading up so many Parry Mason novels when I was growing up!
Babuji used to love those... ...and the letters which he would receive (and I would respond to)... his life-line to his life
Somewhere in mid '70s those letters stopped coming with the same regularity... dont know why
One day, in Jan/Feb '76, he said/ told me something like - the world/life is going on; there is no reason to live (OK, not exactly, but something like that as remember) ... and then he let go his life...
...his internal life-support systems let go (maybe he allowed that)... I still recall a call from my elder brother on (I think) April 2nd from KGMC/Lucknow, that it is over more than 30+yrs now,
that he is not there anymore!... or maybe he is!
in any case, this post was a tribute to that Theosophist who also loved Parry Mason novels on his 125th birthday - today!
This is one of them… a sort of ongoing process of (re)discovering – literally, as one excavates those memories - how one became what keeps on becoming…
One of the significant (and implicitly moulding) influences in my early teenage days was my grandfather.
An ardent Theosophist (someone who hobnobbed with Annie Besant), a teacher. His career (as we call it now) ranged from being private tutor to the JK Singhania’s son to being the Principal of the Theosophical Society School, Kamachha, Varanasi… (he resigned from the Singhania’s tutorship because he resented being treated as an ‘employee’ and not as a teacher – a parallel which I find in my father’s resignation from being the Modi’s personal physician in ‘40s!)
My grandfather’s principles also led to his rather shaky career path - and apparently, from what I could gather, also resulted in some tumultuous/ insecure upbringing of my uncles… some who never forgave him for that!)...
In any case, he came into my life when I was around 12-13. My grandmother had expired in ’63; he had stayed with one of my uncles in Delhi, and then came to stay with us in Faizabad/Lucknow in late-‘60s/ early-‘70s, where my father was posted then.
Babuji – as my grandfather was called – had lost his eye-sight by then. Looking back, I always think that this can be the worse thing which can happen to a teacher, whose only life-line has been what he reads.
But he picked up with life as it unfolded for him – and with a gusto!
His only contact with the rest of the world was a transistor/radio… and through that he picked up and mastered things/ events which were quite alien to his previous life…
… we used to have a peon, Tulsi, who was deputed to take care of him (ah, the feudal bureaucratic set-up!).. and Babuji, who would intently listen to ‘Krishi Darshan’, and will have pretty educated discussions on agriculture with Tulsi...
… for a person, whose life was pretty cognitive/ideological, Babuji picked up (through the commentaries on the transistor) the intricacies of positions in cricket (e.g., mid-leg, gulley, etc.)… and the mysterious ways in which tennis scores are counted in Wimbledon…
I learnt all these from him – from a blind person, who had never known these spheres of life (maybe have despised them too!)
I used to be his ‘personal secretary’ then. I would read out the letters (so many!) he would receive, and take dictation (on postcards and inlands) to respond… that ‘peek-in’ to his life, relationships and conversation too was a learning for life
As his ‘personal secy’, I remember, I also used to read out novels to him – chapter-by-chapter/day-by-day….. and that’s how I guess I ended up reading up so many Parry Mason novels when I was growing up!
Babuji used to love those... ...and the letters which he would receive (and I would respond to)... his life-line to his life
Somewhere in mid '70s those letters stopped coming with the same regularity... dont know why
One day, in Jan/Feb '76, he said/ told me something like - the world/life is going on; there is no reason to live (OK, not exactly, but something like that as remember) ... and then he let go his life...
...his internal life-support systems let go (maybe he allowed that)... I still recall a call from my elder brother on (I think) April 2nd from KGMC/Lucknow, that it is over more than 30+yrs now,
that he is not there anymore!... or maybe he is!
in any case, this post was a tribute to that Theosophist who also loved Parry Mason novels on his 125th birthday - today!
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