Mini Bus, Bozo Bus

With only one week of school holidays left, I thought I'd get some 'snapshots' in.

When we were in Sahagunj, where Dunlop had their factory, we'd travel every other week to Cal to visit Arup's parents. Often, the whole 3-hour-or-so-journey would be by car but sometimes we'd take the local train and then a taxi from Howrah station to Dover Road.

Whenever we were on the go, I'd mostly have the kids VERY close to me. - Yes, both of them! - Mini propped up in one arm and Bozo perched on one knee. Sometime he'd slide off onto the seat, but still keeping pressed to me, his hand clutching my knee...

Well, I did say 'mostly'. If we were by ourselves, no other Dunlopian travelling with us, for him to talk to, Arup would have Bozo on his knees and talk to him. If Subir (Sengupta, Subir Kaka) was travelling with us, Mini would sleep in his arms - and do unspeakable things to him.

I was in the habit of talking to them all the time if they were close by, and getting them to respond. They'd be wonder-struck by the most mundane of things. "Look at that tree. How BIG it is!" "Watch out! There's another train going in the opposite direction, flashing by us." "That's Howrah Bridge. Why do you think it's there?" (Bozo's answer? "So people don't have to get wet if they want to cross the river.") "That yellow car's a taxi!" ('Tah-sheeee!' Bozo'd say.) And his favourite was the mini-bus. They were all brown in those days. Our Mini was a late talker (and did she make up for that!) so she'd just chortle and chuckle and gurgle and bounce up and down on my knee when she began to sit there. Each time we saw a mini-bus, there was much excitement.

On retrospect, I doubt if they knew why it was a mini-bus. Obviously, they only associated it with our Mini. Maybe they thought it belonged to Mini. Or maybe they decided it was the name of the bus - one bus that mysteriously appeared all over the place, just because it WAS another Mini, so had to be part of us. Who knows what deductions such little ones make from things we grown-ups take for granted, so don't bother to explain?

One day, Bozo came up with the clincher. I suppose he'd deduced from his learnings at school what a 'bus' was, and what 'mini' meant. So he brilliantly put the two together and on one trip, he shouted out, "Oi to! Oita Bozo-Bus!" "There it is! That's a Bozo-Bus!"

It was one of the usual, larger buses and most pleased he was when we agreed heartily...

And from then it was "Mini-Bus", "Bozo-Bus" all the way home!

Snapshot

I never saw this sight myself, but it has been described to me several times, by different people, Purobi or Tutu or both amongst them:

Brother and sister are studying at the Dunlop English Medium School. School used to give over at about 1230 hours, and all the kids were naturally famished and tired and often cranky. Mini is a year and eight months younger than Bozo, so there's not that much of a difference in their sizes.

The sight described to me is like a photograph in my mind -

They're returning home from school. Bozo has his school bag AND Mini's slung about his shoulders, but on his chest. Mini is riding piggy-back!

If that's not cute enough, Mini on several occasions had this stick in her hand, pretending to be riding a horse. Cute, because I've never heard it told that she USED it!

Happy Birthday!!!

Ma's post prompted me to stop procrastinating and write again. I was going to post today anyway, because like her, I seem to feel the urge most when there's an occasion coming up. Like his birthday. Birthdays are a good time for reminiscing (and introspection) anyway, I have always found.

Here's one really really old memory: Dada and I had a bedtime routine when we were kids. I have no idea how it started, but every so often, once we were tucked into bed, we would have a Q&A session, which would go something like this... (we would talk in Bengali, but the English translation is in italics):

Mini: Dada, tui ghoomachchhish? Are you sleeping?

(Yes yes, I do realize that is a silly question to ask, but hey, we were kids.)

Bozo: Na. No

Mini: Tui kaalke aamaar shonge khelbi? Will you play with me tomorrow?

Bozo: Hain. Yes

(I am pretty sure there were a couple of other questions after this one, but I can't really remember them.)

Mini: Tui aamaake bhaalo baashish? Do you love me?

Bozo: Hain. Yes

Mini: Koto-ta? How much?

Bozo: Prithibi-ta joto boro toto-ta. As much as the earth is big.

Yes, quite corny, I know, and really the kind of conversation that sounds cute only coming from under-ten-year-olds, but it reminds me of how lucky we were to have each other for company while growing up, and also of how close we were. Of course, I think we usually had this conversation after we had had a fight, but it was a pretty good way to make up.

We would take turns asking the questions. In fact, I am pretty sure he thought them up in the first place. Oh and he would turn it into a competition as we grew older. If I'd answered, "as much as the earth is big", he would equate his love for me with the size of the universe, and no matter how much I tried, he'd always manage to find a way to top my statement. Yes yes, he was the smarter one, I know. :)


That's him with Ma at Narendrapur (the boarding school he went to for a year), and in front of our house when he was about 8, I think.

... and nothing to do with aptitude...

Yes, academically, they were both very differently inclined, and I remember how upset Mini used to be when her teachers would compare the two of them. And rightly so! I used to go and talk to / yell at them, my colleagues, the next day, though Mini never knew that, I think!

But we, her Ba and I never doubted her abilities. We were rather disappointed when she chose Hotel Management out of all those career options at that expo we all went to. (Do you remember it?) But we didn't let on. At least I hope we didn't....

And yes, he was the best big brother anyone could ever have, without exception. He totally, unconditionally, doted on his baby sister, from day one. The number of times he took the rap for her! (Do you remember, Mini?)

Even today, our Dunlop friends remember how he, not seven years old, would carry his school bag, Mini's school bag AND MINI, only a year and a half younger, on his back, coming back from school!

And she adored him right back, despite occasional appearances to the contrary. (What siblings don't have their disagreements?)

I remember the whole Dunlop School being abuzz one day, when I went to collect them! Must have gone to pay the school fees or collect report cards or something, as they usually came home on their own.

Anyway, the school was all abuzz, as I said before. Mrs. Mukherjee, Mini's teacher, and Mrs. D'Souza, Bozo's Class 3 Maths teacher, were supposed to be complaining to me, but they were totally amused and actually sounded approving!! They told me what had happened.

That day, Bozo'd scored 100% in a Maths test (yea, Y, nerdy even at age eight!) and two of his class-mates (one a sardarji, I remember! though that's neither here nor there...) beat him up for it. Mini was in class 2. When she got wind of this, SHE WAS LIVID. She got together a couple of friends, Pum-Pum and ... who else? All girls. Maybe someone remembers who they were! Anyway, she got them together and, armed with foot-rulers and sticks, they went to the Class 3 classroom, closed all the doors so they couldn't escape AND all the windows, presumably so the teachers wouldn't see and interrupt them, and BEAT THOSE BOYS UP.

Bozo never had trouble from them again...

It's purely academic

Ok so I've been lazy. I find it very easy to be lazy, unfortunately. But here I am, fighting my natural inclination to be a sloth, and writing about my beloved elder brother instead. ooh aren't I the sweetest :-)

Ok so I am not. He was easily the better person and certainly loved me more and showed it better too. Not that he didn't have any flaws, and we definitely had our rough patches, but he was still the best big brother ever. He's only 20 months older than me and we had the best childhood together. There are plenty of incidents from our Dunlop and Rajasthan days that I could write about and I will at some stage, but I will save them for a future post.

This one's about more recent memories... we were always close growing up, but our mid-teens did not go very well at all. We fought a lot; he became a domineering and controlling big brother all of a sudden, a complete change from the mild-mannered boy who had let me boss over him all my life, and I have to say I truly hated him for a while back then.

Thankfully that phase didn't last forever. He finished school and left for BITS (Birla Institute of Technology and Science), Pilani, many miles away, and came back after his first semester a changed guy. He wanted to be friends again, but as my parents (and some of my exes!!) know only too well, I am incredibly stubborn and find it quite easy to be coldly unforgiving. So it took 2 more trips and numerous pleas to be forgiven before I finally "deigned" to do so and we were back to being best of friends just like that. (Although I continued to remind him every now and again about how mean he had been to me, and he would be suitably contrite each time!)

By this time I was nearing the end of Year 12 at school, and Bozo, who was quite happy at BITS, wanted me to join him there, never mind that I was too lazy and/or not smart enough to get in. He would keep looking up courses he thought I might enjoy, but while I did like the idea of studying at the same University as him, I had no illusions about my intelligence/academic commitment, and decided to study Hotel Management instead. While this decision did disappoint him a little, and he continued to try and "sell" BITS to me each time I visited, he quickly progressed to being highly enthusiastic about my hoteliering achievements.

Like the time I happened to come first in my Cookery Finals in my First Year (purely by chance, seriously... my Professor was as surprised as I was). Despite knowing the full story, Dada went and boasted about his "talented" little sister to his friends, which I discovered on a subsequent trip to Pilani around Diwali with my parents, elder Aunt and cousin Manu. During this visit, some friends of his were cooking Tandoori chicken, and Dada told them very confidently that I would be able to tell them exactly what to do, being the culinary expert I was. I vaguely remember a disagreement over how long the chicken should be marinated for, and Dada laughed at them for not listening to me. A few hours later, I was embarrassed when the friends said quite smugly (and justifiably so) that the chicken had turned out just fine, but he insisted it would have been far better if they had followed my instructions.

The best big brother ever, as I said.

Note: I would like to assure everyone (especially my mother!) that I do not suffer from low self-confidence/self-esteem. It's just that there was an undeniably large difference between our levels of intelligence, coupled with the fact that he quite liked studying, whereas I had no interest in it whatsoever until I went for my MBA. So while theoretically I could have gained admission into BITS, it certainly wouldn't have been as effortless as it was for him, and I most definitely did not want to work hard enough for it. And that's ok too.

Old King Cole

One's memory is a strange thing. I remember the exact moment this picture was taken, and always have, but I don't remember who took it, although I am fairly sure it wasn't one of our parents. I do remember that it was taken on a Polaroid camera.... the very first time I saw one; it was very exciting!

I am not even sure how old we were... it was taken directly after a school function (and we are standing next to the stage) and Dada played Old King Cole in some kind of an adaptation of the nursery rhyme. I, on the other hand, had the extremely glamorous task of playing 'another brick in the wall' quite literally. I, along with a bunch of other chubby kids, formed part of the wall of a princess's castle. Did not bode well for a career in the arts. Sigh.

Dada, however, was always effortlessly good at everything to do with academics as well as extra-curricular activities. I remember a few years after this picture was taken, he was the Master of Ceremonies at another event. (It was some kind of a cultural show, and I had by this time graduated from being part of the set to being one of the dancers.) I was standing out front in the audience at the beginning, and there he was, this small boy on a huge stage in front of a sea of people, but there wasn't a hint of nervousness as he so beautifully spoke about the programme ahead of us that evening. He couldn't have been more than 11 or 12 years old at the time, and I was completely in awe of him. It was not the first time (and certainly not the last) that I felt so incredibly proud that he was MY brother!