Now, Mashi, why would you give a name like Bozo to the most un-Bozo-ish person around? But it's a very sweet name, anyway!I thought I would have lots to write about but I guess I really don't. I have gone through all the posts and comments carefully and can tell that getting it all out is a great thing. But I can write only about the very few things that I remember.
I never got to know Bozo Bhaiyya (yes, he was more 'Bhaiyya' than Dada to me) as well as I should have. He would just sort of turn up once in a while at Pandara Park. I would typically only know he was here, when I saw him shaving at the wash-basin in the morning – but it was always nice to have him around, even though I didn't really quite understand what he was all about – hadn't met anyone like him, you see!
For one, he picked up a guitar that was lying around – I was trying to learn it at the time – and he said he didn't know how to play – and proceeded to play what sounded like a very intricate and beautiful tune, to my young ears. I was amazed that someone who 'couldn't play' could sound like that. I have other faint memories, one of which involves a huge book, with almost all the Beatles songs, lyrics and chords – was it his, which he lent to Abhi, or something? Don't remember and don't know where that book is, either. Was he a big Beatles fan? I think he was but don't remember this clearly.
I do remember one time when I happened to write him a letter with a Rakhi enclosed – he was so touched by it that he sent me a present – a subscription to the magazine 'Connect'. Now, he was clearly intelligent beyond comprehension but I was a fairly stupid kid – and couldn't understand what the magazine was talking about, so made a disparaging remark about it one time. He smiled and casually asked me to go and hang myself and the topic was closed. Even after he passed away, the magazine just kept coming and coming – I don't know how long he had subscribed to it for me. I tried to appreciate the magazine after that but I still couldn't and in fact, every month's arrival filled me with a feeling of guilt for telling him that I was planning to use it for firewood! However, I like to think it didn't bother him at all because he was way too smart to have his feelings hurt by some ten year old smartypants. But then again, he was sensitive enough to be touched by a simple Rakhi in the mail, so am not sure. Anyway.
He had this amazing knack of telling jokes with a completely straight face, of course. I remember one particularly horrifying 'Dead Baby' series – I was so taken with these that I wrote them down in my diary for future reference. It doesn't seem all that funny now, 15 years later, especially to me now that I am expecting – but the point is – he was incredibly funny and I haven't actually seen that kind of sense of humour in anybody else – ever.
My memories are all mixed up and very sparse; I realize that as I try to write this. Maybe it will get clearer over some time – will try again then.
Love you, Mashi and Mini!
Y
Y - Love you too. I've given you contributing access for the next time you feel like posting.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you never really called him "Bhaiyya" either, except when you were made to by the grown-ups :-) It was mostly just "Bozo", brat that you were ;-)and he was fine with that.
The name "Bozo" as far as I know, is from the book "Love Story" by Erich Segal. The young couple in the book referred to their unborn child as Bozo the Clown :-) I remember Dada telling Ma he'd figured out where she got the name from... he read the book during his first semester at BITS.
And yes, he was a big Beatles fan, and Ma and I hunted down that book for him in Bombay; it was a birthday present, I am fairly certain. I am not sure where it is either, maybe Ma knows?
I remember that "Connect" subscription!! Think you were about 12 or 13 at the time, coz he was at BITS by then. And no, his feelings weren't hurt; he was quite happy to read the magazines himself when he visited :-)
The 'Dead Baby' jokes were really quite funny from what I remember. What I liked most was the barely suppressed glee with which he would tell them!! I don't remember the actual jokes very well myself, but Aravind rattled off some of them a few years ago.
Hey, Y, so Mini's revealed the story of Bozo's name. Only one small correction: A couple of months before he went off to BITS, he'd asked me what had made us call him that, and I'd told him. (They'd refer to their unborn child as the bozo. At that time, I didn't really know what a bozo was, but that was all that I remembered of the book or the movie!) So as Mini says, during his first sem at BITS he read a soppy, sentimental book he'd never otherwise have picked up!
ReplyDeleteSome time later, he said he didn't want to be called Bozo any more. Of course, I understood, and began to think of what I should call him. After a couple of days, he said, "No, it's ok. You can keep calling me Bozo. It's ok, really!"
Me, I remembered something soon after he died. The couple in the book had lost their bozo ...
Mashi