Innocent bribes, ice candies and pontoon bridge!
Desh Bir
Peer Saluhi perched on top of a lofty, rocky ridge (in Kangra district ), was a village named after Sakhi Sultan Lakhdata Peer whom the rural folk owed their allegiance and gratitude for granting progeny and also a good flow of milk at home—basic longings of people in a chiefly agrarian society.
Life moved at a slow pace and all seemed to be well with the world. There was bliss in the air and gratitude in people’s hearts. School was fun because half of the classes were held in the open in winter sun. Mid-day steaming-hot milk , courtesy US aid, added to our gala time , though sometimes it left an aftertaste in the mouth. On milk days we would carry from home some sugar in a paper folded carefully, in case the milk turned out to be flatly sweet.
We had a classmate in the eighth class named Raja Ram, a very plain boy, but a bit too tall for his years. So we, stealthily, called him a walking ladder. My father was the Headmaster of the school. A government notification had suddenly raised the school fee from a mere five paise to seventy-five paise per month which, to some, seemed a big dent into their pockets those days.
One Sunday morning Raja Ram’s father ,who was my father’s namesake ( and this made him optimistic, he had said), turned up at our home with a tiny earthen pot containing desi ghee and begged of my father to exempt his son from the enhanced fee structure. Father told him that such fee could not be waived, yet he would not believe it.
He offered the ghee he had brought in return for grant of the requested favour. Father turned harsh. Yet he persisted and wanted father to show some moderation. “Theek Theek laga lo Sharma ji”, he prayed. Such a simple man and such an innocent bribe. Alas, it did not work.
In the months of May and June every year there would be held a fair around the Lakhdata Peer Dargah on six consecutive Thursdays. That was a festive season for us. Even school would break at noon on such Thursdays.
Refrigeration, ice and ice cream were only a far cry those days. A major attraction at these fairs used to be the mango flavoured ice candy brought in wooden boxes on horseback. In 1964 it happened that on all the first four Thursdays, it rained torrentially around noon and there being no hope of good sales much prized ice candies were put to distress sale at six for an anna. It was sheer coloured, flavoured and sweetened frozen water. But how much of it could be hoarded and relished!
Our greed for the delicacy was limitless, but limited were the chances of really relishing it for hours, because there were no fridges. It was a both a ‘win-win’ and a ‘lose-lose’ situation for us!
In February 1964 our class had to appear in the Middle Standard examination at Govt. Hr. Secondary School, Nadaun—located five kilometers away. Taking no chances against vagaries of winter weather, the entire class was made to shift to Nadaun for a week and we stayed in the vacant house of an aunt of our Maths Teacher. Paddy straw, as was the practice, had been spread all over the floor in all the rooms to serve as a buffer against the cold. On it were laid the beds to provide all possible coziness.
The house was just a hundred yards from the spot where stood a pontoon bridge across the river Beas resting on about fifteen large boats. On days intervening two exams, some of us would go and sit in these boats to revise our books as also enjoy the rocking and swaying offered by the boats when a vehicle passed over the pontoon bridge. It was like a dreamy Gondola ride for us. That was adventure! That was romance! That was diversion in the midst of burden of exams! How would today’s children react to such an earthly thrill!
(The author is a Retired Principal Govt. College, Hoshiarpur-Punjab)
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