ALEPH BOOK COMPANY
An independent publishing firm
promoted by Rupa Publications India
First published in India in 2022
by Aleph Book Company
7/16 Ansari Road, Daryaganj
New Delhi 110 002
Copyright Deepti Naval 2022
All rights reserved.
The author has asserted her moral rights.
The views and opinions expressed in this book are those of the author and the facts are as reported by her, which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publisher is not in any way liable for the same.
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ISBN: 978-93-90652-62-4
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
A Note about the Book
When I started to write about my childhood, I thought of it as not just a regular book where I tell people about all that I lived through. Rather, I wanted to recreate my childhood for the reader. I wanted to take you through those corridors of memory, setting up things the way I remember them. In that sense it is not a typical memoirit is more like a screenplay. This book could simply be titled, Stories from my Childhood. And it would be apt. Because I feel life is all about stories; that I am the sum total of all the stories that impacted me since I was a little girl, stories from my early days. It is stories that fill me up with lifemake me what I amstories that make me look at life the way I do, stories that make my world come alive. If it were not for the stories that came down to me from my mother, my father, and from all the people around at the time I was growing up, then who would I be? What would I be without the stories that crept into my heart, found a nesting place, and stayed in there forever?
Stories I dont nurture them, they nurture me.
Prologue
The Dance of Songs
I ts getting dark in the city of Amritsar. Shops are shutting down. Street lamps come on, casting dim yellow pools of light. Rickshaws and bicycles hustle to make their way home. A handcart loaded with gunny bags wobbles down the street. Even Dwarkas kite shop is winding up. The old Sardar tailor pulls his rickety shutter down, gets on his bicycle, and pedals away. Shahnis voice can be heard; shes urging her buffaloes home. Grubby little boys, the mochis, play outside in the gully, and behind the threshold of the phaatak, the big iron gate, two little sisters, Bobby and Dolly, go about their lives.
This scene seems like its from hundreds of years ago but it actually dates back to 1956. Its one of my earliest memories in which I am almost four years old. Its the street I remember the most, the street on which I lived.
A little girl darts out of her house crying, I want to go to my Mama!
Come back! shouts Mai Sardi, my nanny, from inside the big gate.
No, I want to go to my Mama!
Your Mama has gone to the cinema; you get in here at once!
I will also go to the cinema! she retorts, and runs down the street.
Suddenly, something stirs in the air. Theres a muffled grunt in the sky, and the breeze changes. The sky turns red. Tin sheds begin to flap and rattle; the smell of wind on earth. Its a dust storm!
Stray pieces of paper littering the ground outside the bookbinders shop fly up and float in the air. Bicycles fall in a slow, studied motion along the wall of the cinema hall. The wooden shutter of Gyaan Halwais shop tilts and slips out of its clamp. He stands with his arms outstretched, holding it with all his malai-lassi strength against the wind, his lungi threatening to fly off. A rickshaw puller pedals backwards and sideways. The world seems to slant at the edges. Dust storms the streets. Mai Sardis voice cuts through the mayhem. STOP! I say Get back, girl Its dark!
The girl is not coming back. She runs all the way to the end of the street and suddenly finds herself in the middle of Katra Sher Singh Chowk in front of Regent Talkies surrounded by huge cinema posters. The posters begin to tear from the whiplash of the wind. Szarrr szar szar szar szarrrrrrrr Faces of actors and actresses fold up and slap against the dry whitewash of the decrepit cinema hall. Unable to keep her eyes open from the dust, wind, and tears, the little girl hides her face in her sleeve. At her feet swirl particles of dust, torn scraps of paper, bright orange and pink trimmings from the tailors shop and gather momentum. She stands still for a while, watching the little merry-go-round around her dotted rubber booties until her eyes fall upon something.
Across the street, the plotwallah is doing a tandav! He is the skinny man who sells little leaflets with the plot and songs of Hindi films printed on them. A strong gust whisks away the sepia coloured leaflets from his hands and flings them into the wind. They soar in the air, going up and up in circles, dodging the poor mans attempts to retrieve them. Tossed into the wind, the yellowed sheets somersault, now diving to his feet, now rising as if to sudden applause! He leaps and plunges by the side of the road, slapping his arms around, hurling himself at the musical notes. One leaf slips into two and two into four, till the songs dance above his gaunt, lanky frame. He dances with the songs, the poor plotwallah, trying in vain to hang on to his only means of livelihood, as it slips away into the grainy air.
No one notices the little girl as she stands in the middle of the chowk, enthralled by the dance of songs; her large eyes fill with tears, but she forgets to cry.
There you are, marjaani!
Mai Sardi steps forward, scoops me up in one sweeping movement, lodges me onto her hip, strides down the street, and puts me back inside the house where I belong. As we enter, my grandmother rises from her chair pointing a finger at me.
NO little girls from good homes ever go out to cinemas on the street!
Sinister Sadhus and Baleful Bats
I t was during the winter rains that I arrived. I was born on 3 February 1952 at the V. J.Queen Victoria Jubilee Hospital located at one end of Company Bagh in Amritsar.
It was a very disturbed, stormy night, recalls my mother. The night you were born it rained incessantly. I was lying in a little corner room of the hospital with you, a tiny bundle, next to me on the cot. The room was filled with water. It leaked everywhere. A cold wind blew in from the slit in the window. There was a furnace in the room, but no one was around to light the firewood. The long sprawling corridors of the old Victorian red brick structure lay empty in the thrashing downpour.
