Of English and alu paranthas

It was a wide-bodied jet, a Boeing 777. In the “cattle class”, there were ten seats in a row, four in the middle and three each on the sides, with two aisles separating them. I had an aisle seat on the right. Between the window and me were an elderly Haryanvi couple, returning from holiday in Stamford, where their daughter lived. Within minutes of introduction and exchange of pleasantries, the husband, let’s call him Rampal, invited me (and my wife who was not accompanying me) to his home in a village near Sonipet, and promised paranthas made with the finest buffalo milk ghee. After spending a month in the United States, I felt I was already in India. Such an offer was unimaginable from an American. An American would never know the joy of inviting a complete stranger home, or of “feeding broken biscuits to street dogs”.

I knew I wouldn’t travel to Sonipet to eat paranthas, however fine the ghee might be. And my virtual host too knew it as fact. But I am sure his offer was genuine. At that moment, he would have imagined me as a guest in his house. A golden wheat field with water gushing out of a pipe, and tall bony men and women with high cheek bones flashed before my eyes. So I said, ‘Han ji! Zaroor jayenge.’

Rampalji was a retired secondary school teacher and his wife, a homemaker. Their children were well-placed and his family had houses in Sonipet, Chandigarh, and New Delhi. A relaxed person, he was pleased with life and exuded the confidence that comes alongside success. He spoke absolutely no English, like many educated people from the North.

Across the aisle on my left was a young woman with a baby in a bassinet hooked to the wall in front. She was tall, lean, beautiful, in jeans and a white top. She was travelling alone with the baby. She had obviously noticed the book I was reading and spoke to me in Bangla, ‘Kaku, can you please look after my son for a few minutes? I’ll go to the toilet.’

Sonny was remarkably quiet and needed no looking after. His mother came back, thanked me, and took her seat. Then she started chatting with me. She was from a small town near Kolkata and had done Bachelors in Commerce before getting married and joining her husband in New Jersey. She came out as a competent, smart young woman. I liked the simple and forthright way she talked. I also felt the sadness that every man over fifty must have felt at some time or other. She obviously had obviously taken me to be a harmless old fogey.

A little later, an air-hostess handed over disembarkation cards to us. The girl across the aisle approached me again, presently, with a touch of embarrassment, ‘Kaku, could you please complete the form for me?’

As I filled in her form, I thought of the terrible state of English teaching in Bengal. Why, after studying English for eight to twelve years at school and after three years of college, an otherwise confident girl could not fill one of the simplest forms in English?

After I was through with her form, Rampalji gave me a shy smile and asked me to fill his and his wife’s. When they were done, he called a steward and asked for a stamp pad. The steward gave a puzzled look and said, ‘Why do you need a stamp pad, sir?’

Raising his left thumb and pointing at his wife with his right, Rampalji said, ‘Angutha chhap!’

Air India apparently doesn’t include the stamp pad among necessary passenger amenities. The steward replied in Hindi, ‘Sir, you sign for bhabiji. That should be fine.’

My gloomy thoughts about the implications of a school master’s wife being unlettered were interrupted by a delightful, sumptuous dinner served by the much maligned national carrier. After dinner, bhabiji took out some alu paranthas and achhar as a supplementary dish and offered me a plateful. I took one. It was heavenly.

I watched three movies that night, including Dev Anand’s Guide. For some unfathomable reason, all but one of the songs of the film had been snipped off. Whoever did it, couldn’t delete SD Barman’s Wahn kaun hai tera … because it came along with the credits. It was such a big let down! Guide without its lilting songs was like Agra without the Taj and the Fatehpur Sikri.

The next day, before reaching Delhi, I asked Rampalji casually, ‘Sirji, what subjects did you teach in school?’

‘English’, said he.

[This is a true story, except for the names of persons and places. It was published in The Statesman on 19 November, 2009]