Back in hostel, in my college days, I had a bulky radio receiver, a relic of World War II. Ensconced in a metal case that had designer dents to make it rugged and in military olive green it resembled an ammunition-box. The radio had a huge inverted 'U' shaped dial and big round knob to move the needle around the dial. Since the needle moved very slowly the knob was provided with a tiny handle with which you vigorously rotated the knob, something like the 'z' shaped bar that was inserted in a hole under the radiator of an ancient truck to start a stalled engine. The stations in MW (medium wave) were very few and far apart and SW (short wave) did not work in daytime. It had a thick flexible cord attached to probably a microphone, which someone had yanked off leaving an inch size hole in metal body. You could see dull red glow of an array of vacuum tubes through this hole inside the metal box. This was already the age of stereo systems, of LPs, big speakers and two-in-ones etc. Actually one of my friends, who was a music-system whiz, had his room look like stage of Rock concert with Big Speaker columns, Amps and Equalizers and such stuff. My radio had curiosity value therefore it moved from one room to another and back to my room like 'Kasim ka Joota'. Joshi had converted narration of this story from Arabian Nights into a fine art.
Joshi was short and lean, his weight never touched fifty Kilograms, mostly hovered at forty-eight kg. His lips curved at the ends crookedly giving out a look of repulsive lusty leer, yet he literally, or shall we say pictorially was an iconoclast. He demolished the myth so emphatically that girls go after tall handsome muscular men. To our searing jealously and frustration, we found Joshi always in the company of prettiest girls. Whenever I felt a bout insomnia I would go to Joshi and ask, ' Joshi, "Kasim Ka Jootaa" sunaa!" You must have heard this story from Arabian Nights, in which Kasim makes for himself a steel sole shoe due to leather shoe wearing quickly but finds steel shoe hard to use so chucks it away. Unfortunately it lands on neighbors glassware. Angry neighbor throws it right back supplementing with some choice invectives. Next Kasim throws the shoe in a river but a fisherman finds it trapped in his net, the net badly damaged, he too returns the shoe to Kasim with abuses and so on. Some times Joshi would oblige, he was quite inventive and could go on and on with the narrative ad-nauseam until one fell asleep.
We mostly listened to Hindi film songs broadcast from "Vividh Bharati" station and evening Hindi news from Devki Nandan Pande in his deep baritone. The English news came to us from Surjit Sen; these two gents had become synonymous with the news until TV sent the radio into oblivion. The speaker in the radio was unique, it did not have permanent magnet instead a bulky electromagnet. It took ages to warm up and begin spurting out sounds, enough to drive today's kids crazy. A year in the hostel, the speaker burned. Our College was a few kilometers away from town but there was a cluster of shops on the highway slightly off the college gate. Jha found a radio mechanic in the 'hauli' (village pub) so one day we dragged the bulky set into the lap of this mechanic and forgot.
Jha was an amiable character well liked by all. He was a genius, would help us with assignments and projects even though he had different subjects than us. But Jha could be bull headed on some rare occasions and then it would be very difficult to get him round to senses. We had forgotten all about my radio, when a month later a fellow, who was regular to that 'hauli', yelled at me, "abe Kala, 'hauli' men tera baajaa baj rahaa hai." There was nothing in that direct pun to be upset about, this was typical college lingo.
Five of us set off for ‘hauli’ to retrieve the radio. There was a room next to ‘hauli’ without any door where this radio mechanic worked. We found the radio in this room going full blast, a raucous Lata blurting out "Jaao jahan kanhin ankhoN se door, dil se na jaoge mere hazoor......" a song from movie Professor. There was a big hole in the metal box where speaker used to fit, instead a meter long yellow and red twisted wire came out of the gaping hole attached to a free speaker. This speaker was placed on the mouth of a ‘matka’ as a result all percussion sounds turned in to ‘ghatam’ beats.
Jha immediately got hold of this radio mechanic by his shoulders, shook him and began a noisy quarrel with him. All this commotion drew a big burly man out of hauli, a very big man. He placed his heavy hand on Jha’s shoulder and said in a chilling but controlled voice, "How do you think I run this ‘hauli’?" That was clear signal for us to pull Jha away. Soon a compromise was reached; I paid some money, which probably was equivalent to my whole month’s cigarette expense. We collected the radio and also the matka in typical Mullah Naseeruddin style, ‘gadhe ke saath kaathi bhi.’ Matka wasn’t such a great idea because we soon got tired of matka resonance but without sound box bare speaker sound too was not good so a routine emerged. Anyone coming will immediately remove the speaker from matka if it was there and if it was not on matka then put it on matka.
It was either early winter or fading winter; the time of year when sun is unpleasant but inside too is not very welcome. In the afternoon I with Jha, Joshi and another fellow were lying on bed resting out heads against the wall and legs placed on the table across the bed. This was afternoon therefore no film songs program was on air instead an unknown radio artist was playing sitar, speaker resting on top of the matka. Joshi was relating of yet another conquest of his. He apparently was in town a few days back to see Deewar (Amitabh Bachan). There was huge rush to get tickets so he sweet talked two girls to buy ticket for him (girls had separate queues). The girls agreed and bought him a ticket, ticket having seat number between theirs. The rest was usual how he first held their hands and then gradually worked his way up arms..…..,,, Unhappy, we asked him to "Shut up! Shut up! Just shut up!" He looked at us bewildered, shrugged and dozed off. Sitar apparently was incredibly good for in a synchronous act we all dozed off in unison. I had queer dream, very short but with crisp clarity. I wasn't in the dream but I saw a room or rather a hall with very little furniture and airy windows without curtains, very quiet and inanimate. The hall was littered with bodies on the floor in most disorderly way. Suddenly a man rises says, "baRi THhaNd hai, aik laash oDh letaa huN" and then this zombie picks up a body lies down and lays the body over him. Until the man spoke I didn't know they were all corpses. At this point I woke up with a start. Others too woke up. When I told them about this dream, their first reaction was of an incredulous sense of bizarre. Joshi soon recovered and rationalized, "Abe tere ko THaNd lag rahi thii is liye aisaa dream huaa!" That made sense.
However, this surrealistically cryptic, symbolic dream made such a deep impact that it permanently lodged in a secure recess of my memory like a MPEG4 clip, crisp and clear. I see run and rerun of this clip often with crystal clarity perhaps colors have faded or may be colors were never there in the dream. Years later in Bombay, a couple of days of saturation TV images of rioting, when I was on terrace of my building laud noise of crazy men drew my attention towards Array woods on east. I saw a bearded man in ankle high salwar, a woman and two young boys being chased by a frenzied crowd of some twenty, twenty-five men wielding swards, a triangular saffron flag and lathis. The family, it they were a family disappeared behind the cluster of Array woods before the crowd could catch them. I rushed down home shaking like a dried leaf. Soon I began to have uncontrolled run and rerun of that bizarre dream. Words began to pour out incoherently and then crystallized in clear text:
Markaz-e-shahr se nighahoN ke CHor tak,
Sil-sile dar sil-sile laashoN ke DHer haiN.
Chitke aaine meN, uBHar te haiN chaNd aks
Pighalti ghaRiyoN meN baNd, THahra hua hai waqt
QaatiloN ke Khauf ki na baat poochiye
RoohoN ko bhi toRte dam dekhte haiN ham
Mere ODh lene se laasheN abhi garam haiN
Ya, laashoN ko odh ne se sihran nahi hoti
*****
