🚂 Memories from another era

By Monisha Choudhury:

My mother's (Anima Basu nee Dey) father was Basanta Kumar Dey and Grandmom Parimal Dey (nee Mitra), after whom the Parimal cottage in Jorbagh is named. Dadu was a Senior officer in the railways and always travelled first class or had an entire bogey for himself and Dida/ Dimma. 

I faintly remember travelling to Calcutta with him once. We had to keep a notebook and calculate distance with speed and time from one station to another. Another vivid memory was to list the speciality of the city we passed, e.g. it was Meerut ki kanchi, Hathras ka ghee, Aligarh ka tala, Kanpur ka leather chappal, Allahabad ke amrud (guava), Mughal Sarai ka khilona, Durgapur ke wooden khilona lattoo tea set in red, Burdwan ke mihidana. The tea in earthen kullhars became less milky and more flavourful as we travelled into West Bengal from Bihar.

Dada (Biswajit Badu) lived in Jorbagh after Daddy was posted to Jabalpur. He stayed on from 1963 to 66 in Jorbagh with our grandparents. He graduated school from St Columbus and joined DMET Kolkata after that. (Blogger Note: More about DMET days is in this post)

Jorbagh Dadu’s father was Rai Sahib Purna Chandra Rai and he was an Under Secretary in Delhi during British Raj. His wife was Manimala Dasi. I remember Ma telling me she had cancer of the cervix and the whole family had moved to Patna for her radiotherapy. They lived next door to Rajendra Prasad. Ma recalled the great earthquake of the 1930s then and how the stairs they were sitting on and eating peas, had its bottom disappear in front of their eyes while they were suspended in mid air! (Blogger Note: An 8.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Nepal and Bihar in 1934. You can read more about it 

here) 

(Chart credit: Madeleine)

🌊 A Ship in Stormy Seas: Poem by Biswajit Basu

By Biswajit Basu:

A Ship in Stormy Seas

The skies are as black, the winds wail a dirge, 

The seas below roils in malevolent angry gray, 

The bows of the ship yaw in a circular sway, 

As it plunges to the bottom of the next rolling surge.

The heaving liquid mountains roll on in a metronomic run, 

As the forlorn bow teeters trembling then falls into the fray, 

Crashing back into the sea throwing up curving walls of spray, 

Droplets in stormy winds glinting like diamonds in a fading sun 

There is no pause as the waves roll on in relentless haste, 

And suddenly the falling bow meets an angry rising swell, 

The bow pierces the liquid wall and plunges deep into hell, 

Even as the ship careens up vertically in the watery waste.

The masts lurch as the great ship pitches and rolls, 

Drawing crazy circular trails in the darkened sky, 

Ropes flailing and clanking metal as the seagulls cry, 

Rise in a cacophony of shrieks of a thousand souls.

Waves roll on mercilessly as if the ship does not exist, 

Hurrying forth over the foc’sle, gaining speed, 

The first masthouse bifurcates it in a futile bid to impede, 

As it destroys all that loosely lie in its path to resist

The wave thus slithers on its fearsome course, 

Snaking along the length of the lurching deck, 

All that dares impede its path it does wreck, 

Jagged white froth driven by the angry sea's force.

The decks tremble as the engine rumble does falteringly pause, 

Frozen silent by the force of a mountainous wave, 

Starts again with the frenzied shriek of dying slave, 

As the stern turns skyward over the rolling watery jaws.

There is awe as I watch in terror wrapped, 

My heart beats in a crescendo so awful and hoarse, 

I feel so small caught in this battering force, 

I tremble in fear like a hare that is trapped.

The forces of nature are so terrifyingly strong

That in its scheme of things man is but an inconsequential dot, 

Nature flings aside all that his miniscule mind has assiduously wrought

And the juggernaut of nature moves inexorably on.

♓️ Time & Fate: A Short Poem

A small poem on life's philosophy by Biswajit Basu

TIME & FATE

I have swaggered down the narrow path of life

Peeping hither and thither under rocks and stones

Hoping to find a tunnel to happiness

Of landscapes where the forests are lush and gold

2

Where bubbling streams go their merry way

In unthinking delight unknowing whether they will skyward as rain go

Or perhaps as an insignificant drop in the vast salty sea below

3

And lofty cedars and junipers the sky do seek

And the resplendent rhodendron blooms pink and purple on the carpet below our feet

Rendering the landscape a joy to behold

4

But I know, under each stone could be a scorpion instead

Tail curled to strike and its venom deep inside to bed

Tumultuous writhings, cries and strain

Bringing the white agony of distress and pain 

5

But the stones and rocks have to be turned

To unfold what the enigma of Time has fated for you

Life is thus an unending quest.

Of things simply fated to happen to you.

🛍 Of Pursers and Radio Officers

By Biswajit Basu:

On a ship, the three broad professions are Deck, Engine & Catering. Anyone not in these catogories is considered eccentric if not downright insane. Two such people on the ship are the Purser and the Radio Officer.

Let me tell you stories of two Pursers I have sailed with.  One was Bijon Bannerjee.

Bijonda was a dimunitive chap.  You would swear he was a dwarf had he not been so handsome!  Now Bijonda, after his accounting and paperwork was over had time on his hands.  Likewise with me as the Junior Engineer with perpetual night duty, I was free  to go out during the day while in port while everyone else worked.  Everyone, that is, except for the Purser who would have finished his paperwork and port formalities.  This meant that the Junior Engineer and Pursers were free to go out to a restaurant or shopping during the day.

So it was with Bijonda and I. We would often go or together in various United States Ports for shopping.  This we normally did at superstores like Walmart, JC Penneys etc. Soon we got bored of following each other around and, as suggested by Bijonda, we would loaf around invidually in the departments of our choice and meet again at a fixed time at a fixed place.

This worked beautifully. Till such time that in one store I finished early and decided to join him wherever he was. I finally spotted him in the children's department diligently inspecting some clothes and oblivious to the world around him.  I found this rather intriguing because he had just been married and had no children. Even more intriguing was the fact that he was looking at  clothes for older boys.  For a moment I thought he was buying something for a relative.  But suddenly I saw him enter the trial room and matters became clear. I cornered him back on board where he sheepishly admitted that the smallest US size in the men's clothing  was too large  for him and he had to do his shopping in the children's department! 😊

Pursers and shopping reminds me of the story of Bardoliwalla our Parsi purser.  One day, just before arrival Bombay, I went to his cabin for a chat.  I found new men and women's clothes strewn all around and he was doing something with them.  I noticed he was removing the price tags and the SALE tags.  My heart warmed for him thinking that he was doing so with the intention of gifting them to his relatives.  So I told him so and he said they were indeed gifts.  Then he started putting back the price stickers and I found that funny and told him so.  You can depend on a Parsi for being totally honest.  He said that the stickers he was putting back were of a higher price than the original. Thus, he said two things could happen 1) the recipient (his relative) would accept it as a gift and would be very happy that Bardoliwalla had bought him/her a very expensive gift and 2) The recipient would insist on paying him and then he would be at a profit which would cover his purchases that were accepted as gifts! Talk of Parsis being money minded!

Well, talking of money-minded Parsis, here is one Bardoliwalla told me himself.

Bardoliwalla's wife was a classmate of Mrs Sumati Morarjee, our Chairperson.  Bardoliwalla told me he would dread the day that his wife would announce that Sumati ji had invited them for tea.  I found this funny.  Why should he dread the occasion that Sumati ji would invite her classmate and her husband who was an employee?  I was surprised and told him so.  He said Basu...you bengalis will never understand, I would spend Rs 5/- (in those days) as taxi fare for Rs2/- worth biscuits and tea but the dreaded moment would come when she would call her driver, Narayan, and ask him to drop us home.  So what was so dreadful about that, I countered.  "Abbay Gadhera", he said.  If I took a taxi home it would cost me Rs. 5/-.  Now I have to tip Narayan 10 bucks!

👥 Famous neighbors from the past

Before settling down in Hauz Khas, Delhi; Monisha (Moon) Choudhury had quite a nomadic childhood. Here are some of her famous neighbors. 

By Monisha Choudhury: 

I remember Donald (George Albert) Duke, who was our neighbour living in 18 Polo Road Delhi Cantt, later to become famous as he and Pinaki Chatterjee both from the Navy rowed across the Bay of Bengal. They came to our school FAPS (Frank Anthony Public School) as Chief Guests, sometime in 1968-69.

Donald had a beautiful sister Jane and a younger brat of a brother shooting birds and anything moving with a catapult!

Added by Biswajit Basu:

George took early retirement from the Navy and branched into Maritime and undersea repairs etc. I met him many times in his office in Kurla as he was interested in getting into dredging. He told me his younger brother, migrated to UK long ago and breeds horses.

Blogger Note: In 1969, George Duke and Pinaki Chatterjee rowed from Calcutta (Kolkata) to Port Blair, across the choppy Bay of Bengal. They started on Feb 1 and reached their destination on Mar 2. More about the feat and pictures here

_{(From an article posted in 2019 in the aforementioned link)}

By Monisha Choudhury:

Another famous neighbour of 2/1 Brunton Cross Road in Bangalore, were the Manekshaw sisters. They were the daughters of Air Vice Marshal Jemi Manekshaw, brother of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. They were great fans of Pat Boone and Elvis Presley. We had booming music thanks to them....Oh Oh Oh Bernadine!

Added by Biswajit Basu:

Yes, I remember him well looking dapper on his Ducati (I think) motorbike next door in Bangalore. His daughters are Erna & Sherna. Sherna is my age and Erna is younger. They run Basil & Thyme in Sanskruti now. The Defence Ministry was trying to close down the complex. I think the matter is still in court. 

(Blogger note: It seems that the restaurant was relocated to Sunder Nagar a couple of years ago. As of 2021, it is currently closed)

The senior Manekshaws now live in Hauz Khas. I had the unfortunate experience of banging into Uncle Manekshaw's car in 1991. Gentleman that he is, he was very nice and did not even stop. This accident took place near where IIT flyover is (not sure if it was there in 1991).

Blogger Note: Air Vice Marshal Jemi Manekshaw served the Air Force, Medical services along with clocking up over 700 flying hours, including solo. He was awarded the Param Vishisht Seva Medal in 1961. His wife, Bhicoo Manekshaw, is also famous. She was India’s first cordon bleu trained chef and ran the India International Center (IIC) kitchen in the 60s-80s. In 1992, she joined her son-in-law’s restaurant Basil & Thyme.You can read some very interesting anecdotes from her culinary career here. She passed away in 2013.

By Monisha Choudhury: 

Brig (Dr.) Rasamay Ganguly, the famous surgeon and later Dean at AFMC, Pune, was our neighbor in London in the 50s and again in Delhi in the 60s. His elder daughter, Utpala (Polly) is my age. They used to live upstairs at 5 St Charles Sq, London in 1955-57.

We were, once again, neighbors in the 60s, at 22 Polo Road, Delhi. By then, the two younger children - Monomoy and Mala, had been born. I remember Monomoy as a young brat! His granddad, in his white dhoti and bare chest with poita and grey hair, was always running after him! Mala is now a Pathologist in USA.

Blogger Note: In the late 60s, the Basu family lived in 20 Polo Road, Delhi Cantonment. Even numbered houses were on the same side of the road. The Duke family lived in House No. 18 and the Ganguly family lived in House No. 22. They eventually settled down and built the house at R-3, Hauz Khas. 

Lots of famous guys lived in Hauz Khas, writers like Amrita Pritam, Chanchal Sarkar and old famous actors.

(Biswajit Basu) ......and arguably the most famous if them all: Kalpana Joshi (nee Dutta) of the Chittagong Armoury Raid!

Yes, she was a great pal of Daddy and Ma. Ishan, her grandson spent most of his first three years at our house. She gave her house for my wedding,  for Panna’s family to stay. I used to give neurobion injections to PC Joshi ex President of Communist Party. She was mostly in our house and was a great cook. She often gave us loitay shutki fish and puli paish, made with star and half moon shaped puli from Chittagong.

Blogger Note: You can read more about Kalpana Datta here

👥 First Ship: Crew Memories

Details of Biswajit Basu’s first ship posting are 

here. In this post, we meet two of his first crew mates. 

By Biswajit Basu:

One more thing that might interest you of my first voyage is that our Chief Officer was Norman Moses Sassoon. He is from the famous Sassoon family who were the Rothschilds of Bombay and a dock remains named after the family in Colaba to this day.

On the second day, I woke up to the knock of the Deck Serang (head of the Deck crew) who announced "Bada Malim saab aapko yaad kiya hai" (Bada Malim saab is the Chief Officer). Wondering why the C/O would be remembering me, I replied "Saab ko thank you bol dena". Spluttering, the Serang explained that this was a polite way for a senior officer to summon a junior. It was Sassoon wanting to meet me to get to know me. He turned out to be a really wonderful person.  Tragically l, he would lose his brother, Flt Lt. Lloyd Moses Sassoon in the 1971 Bangladesh War (he was a crack Canberra pilot).

_{(Norman and Lloyd Sassoon - a tribute to Flt. Lt. Lloyd Moses Sassoon, click here)}

By the way, the person peering into the radar the previous evening during departure at Madras was the Third Officer, Deepak Malhotra who became a great friend and lives in Bangalore now with his lovely wife, June and two sons. He was the smarty who enabled the Russian Inspector in Odessa to declare our ship had to be disinfected because of the maggots in the rawhide which is how we got a lovely winter vacation in Odessa! 😊

(Blogger Note: You can read about the Odessa anecdote here)

✈️ First Flight to First Sail: The journey begins...

By Biswajit Basu:

How I was posted on my first ship

I received a telegram in Delhi to report to our Calcutta Office of Scindia Steam Navigation Co. Ltd to start my career as an engineer officer on a merchant ship.  It was mid September 1970.

I took the brand new Rajdhani Express which was reputed to do the journey in 17 hours.

I was put up in the Marine Club in Calcutta and told to get my papers ready.The most important document I needed to travel anywhere in the world was a Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC) which was a bit of a procedure and was issued by the Shipping Master. Finally I was issued one (No 143408) which, essentially was more powerful than the Indian Passport as ai could travel to any country in the world while a passport was a a document with some restrictions in those days.

On 28th September, I was told I would be taking the afternoon flight to Madras from Calcutta.  It was on an Indian Airlines flight on a Sud Aviation Caravelle. The odd thing about this aircraft was that it had 3 rear mounted engines  But who cared.  I was on my first flight and that too on a jet plane!

_{(From Jetphotos website)}

There seemed to be a terrible hurry once I reached and I was bundled into the Shipping Office to 'sign on' and straight to the ship in Jawahar Dock where I was introduced to the Second Engineer (I was 5th).  Before I could say Jack Robinson, the engines rumbled on and I was underway. 

_{(Madras now Chennai Port, Wikipedia)}

After dinner, my first on board, I was introduced to the Chief Engineer (a senior and a gold medallist). Next in line was the Master who was an old Englishman, Capt. Paget.  Capt. Paget was not in his cabin but on the bridge and so up I went.  Everything was black on the bridge with various lights (some coloured) blinking on various desks.  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I made out the Captain looking into the night with the twinkling lights of Madras receding in the distance and a strange orange glow over the city.

There was pindrop silence on the bridge except for the distant rumble of the engines and the hiss of the wind.  The solitary helmsman was at the wheel taking orders from someone I could not see and repeating them.  Then I heard the Capt say "Mate, forget that contraption. At night you don't see the land: you smell it"

It was the hoary captain teaching the young 3rd Mate (who was peering into the radar) the tricks of their trade.  I was then introduced to Capt. Paget who wished me a great career.

That was my first day at sea. It was 29th September 1970. Little did I know then that 27 months would pass before I could go home again!

Post Script by Monisha Choudhury:

Wow Dada! What a great beginning away from home! Great memory. I do remember your long trips and short visits home. One was on Daddy and Ma’s 25th Wedding Anniversary. When we garlanded them both and you gave me my first golden Seiko watch which I proudly displayed and wore forever, for ages. Must be 1972. I was wearing my designer blue with yellow flowered bell bottoms and a short blue shirt which was made by a famous tailor frequented by LSR fashionistas at Kailash Market. You, of course, looked handsome and impressive with your black rimmed glasses!

🚻Toilets, Vitamin C and ghost stories

When I asked my uncle to corroborate my research in this post, about ship toilets; this is how the conversation went. 

By Biswajit Basu:

It's 95% true. Sailing ships normally had their toilets (usually 2) in the foc'sle. If they had them on the bowsprit, it would be very, very dangerous as the amplitude of pitch is the most there and would be more of a roller coaster ride than stately poop. There usually would be 2 toilets in the foc'sle. This would have to cater to a 100 or so seamen. So you can imagine the rush every morning. So if you had to go or if you had diarrhea, you would simply jump on to a timber beam of the bow and let fly.  Everything would collect in the bilges in the bottom of the bow and the smell could easily make a rugged able bodied seaman faint.

However, there usually were a couple of more toilets.  And believe it or not they were actually in the poop.  They consisted of a small room projecting out of the hull near the stern. There were usually 2 of them.  One was attached to the captain's cabin and the other served the mates.  They consisted of only a hole on the floor.

Think for a moment of the food.  There was no cooking done as the wooden ship might catch fire.  So the crew ate only biscuits and dry meat with rum.  It is only the later sailing ships that had ovens on gimbals and this was used only in calm weather.  Scurvy was rampant till it was discovered that you could forestall it with vitamin C. Believe it or not, when I was sailing, we were still under the antique Merchant Shipping Act of 1858. Under this Act it was compulsory for everyone to drink lime juice. It was dutifully served at 11am and you could be whipped if you refused to drink it. The Act has been amended since.

(PS...some heavy drinkers would pour some vodka and have it during lunch!)

(Blogger note: The detour to the kitchen was brief, and back to the toilet we went)

Once Daddy and I were visiting Jorbagh Mama's house in Konnagar, near Kolkata.  I was ushered into a huge room with tubs of water.  But there was no toilet!  In the darkness, I saw a hole in the floor.  I went and looked down the hole and I was wondering whether I have to climb down.  Then I saw the pigs one floor below the hole and looking up in anticipation.

All doubts disappeared.

(Blogger note: I cannot believe this is true)

Every word is true.

In the earlier days, even in our army officer's houses, there were usually 3-4 potties with lids and enamel pots suspended from the seat.

These were known as "thunder-boxes".  You did your job, closed the lid and went out.  In our house at T1, Lorry Road in Delhi Cantt this was also the system.  Many of my friends who lived in old houses in Delhi and Bangalore had them.

From Monisha Choudhury:

In Ranikhet, where we went for one month summer vacation every summer, we lived in cottages of the army in the middle of the pine woods. Our toilet was a wooden poop chair with a removable tin pot in the middle with a wooden cover. Every morning the sweeper removed and cleaned them.

I hated them! Specially, I was scared of the dark and the howling hyenas at night. Often, we had forest fires due to the friction amongst the dry pine needle like leaves. There was only a single hotel resturant Moon hotel ....my namesake. I remember going for lunch and early dinner there as we got tired of the bland daily fare of the Army khansamas. I disliked to go for dinner as I did not like the dark and sounds of hyenas. The street lights were lit by firing the lamppost with a long rod every evening which seemed so far away from each other with dark patches in between  and scary shadows of trees and not a soul around! There were so many Ghost stories. One of the Captain who came on a horse in the church. This I experienced a few years ago on our trip to Lansdowne. But that’s another story.

🚽 Of Ship Toilets and Bathroom Humor

Contrary to what it sounds like, a poop deck on a ship does NOT refer to toilets! It is, in fact, the highest deck at the rear/ aft/ stern of a ship. It comes from the French word for stern, ‘la poupe’, which in turn comes from the Latin root puppis. 

Q: So where is the toilet, please? 

A: Make an about turn and go to the opposite end of the ship!!

Ship toilets are also called ‘head.’ This goes back to the early days of sailing where wind power reined supreme. As the wind blew into the sail, the only spot on the boat that would always be downwind would be the head/ bow/ front of the ship. Naturally, no one would like the odors of the call of nature blow throughout the ship. Designating the head as the ‘do-your-big-job-here’ site, would ensure the smell, literally, blew away with the wind. Of course, nowadays, we are far more advanced in toilet placement. The name still endures. 

But, why are we talking about ship toilets anyway? Excellent question. My uncle, Biswajit Basu is a legendary story teller. But it is his penchant for bathroom humour that frequently leaves his audience in resigned, sometimes mortified, but always amused, hysterics. And when he weaves purple prose and poetic rose with it ... well, here’s a little sample of what you get. 

By Biswajit Basu: 

The sea is a beautiful place and everyday you get to see wondrous sights.  Sunsets and sunrises over the sea are usually spectacular except on stormy days.

We had arrived in Bombay Harbour and we were put in anchorage far out awaiting our turn to go in. This was in 1973 and I was the Second Engineer on a very old ship, the Jalavishnu, due for extensive drydocking and repairs. The ship was a very old one -perhaps 20 years old then. Unlike the later ships,which had totally enclosed air-conditioned accomodation, these old ships were not air-conditioned and each cabin opened to the open weather deck which ran along the cabins.

I was the Second Engineer then with a skeleton staff left in the ship as I had nowhere to go in Bombay and others had gone home or to restaurants etc. It was evening and I needed to go to the toilet for the big job and so I went in to the toilet directly from the deck.

On completion, I emerged on to the deck to be greeted by a magnificient sunset. Dark and purple clouds in a red sky silhouetting the ship's that were anchored around us. My heart leapt with joy at this wondrous sight. And I traced the red rays off the sea back to our ships hull and suddenly the whole thing changed from the calm feeling of the serene beauty around me to utter disgust.

There bobbing daintily on the Arabian Sea, in line with the sun's rays, was the consequence in my bodily extrusions of a few minutes ago. It had taken its time to go down the sewer lines and popped out in the ocean just as I looked down!

(Nowadays it is not permitted to dump untreated human waste  at sea)

And when his daughter responded that every hill station vacation trip was littered with guided commentary on the various places he had relieved himself, and open defecation should be banned there as well, this was his answer:

The hills are alive with the smell of fertiliser

With dung that have been dropped for a thousand years

The hills empty my belly with the sound of rumbles

The Himalayan peaks are drooping under the load it bears.

(With due apologies to The Sound of Music)

(Blogger postscript: Jokes aside, human waste management is serious! I came across a lot of interesting articles while writing this post. Just wanted to share this cute and informative graphic from the India Hikes site, on using cocopeat based dry toilets to save our mountains and water sources)

🚹To Pee or Not To Pee 🚺

From Biswajit Basu:

*MY VISIT TO A LADIES TOILET*

I was in Rotterdam and in a rather formal Spanish restaurant. After a few litres of heady Spanish wine, there was this inevitable urge to micturate. I was directed down to the basement.

On arrival, I found myself in a long corridor that curved to the left. It was a terribly lonely place because there wasn't a soul in sight.

I looked up that gloomy corridor and found two little boards which said *SENORA* & *SENORI*

Being somewhat fuzzy in the head with all that wine, logic dictated that the one with an "aa ki maatra" must be for males. I still waited for some one to pass by but nobody turned up.

Deciding that I did not wish to spend my life there, I decided to enter SENORA, the Male toilet.

Inside, it was quite different from a traditional man's toilet. There were no urinals, only toilet cubicles. The pressure was rising to damburst levels and so I simply chanted *Joy Ma Durga* and ran into the nearest cubicle and started my job.

Meanwhile, as I was finishing I heard someone enter the toilet. Horror of horrors, she was a lady! I simply could not fathom what a lady was in a man's toilet. Anyway, while passing me she said but one word *PERVERT* which got me thinking again.  

I did not tell of this escapade  to my friends at our table.

👩‍⚕️ Med School Shenanigans: Dissecting Memories

By Monisha Choudhury:

After passing out of school in 1989, I did one year of pre-med in Deshbandhu College 1970-71. ISCE folks had to wait for 6 months to get into college in July those days with the Higher Secondary folks passing in March 1970. I was briefly in Miranda House doing Zoology Hons from Aug to Oct 1971, before joining the first batch of UCMS in 1971. I was also the first student of UCMS to become a teacher in UCMS!

This is a story about our Anatomy class in our temporary building at Chemistry block Delhi University behind the VCs office and sandwiched by St Stephen's on other side. VP Chest Institute was near Miranda House where we got our University Special bus back home to Haus Khas. 

The story, as far as I remember, goes like this. For our Anatomy class, we had only one full male body and another female cadaver with no organs, gifted by AIIMS. We were told to go ask our Principal to get us more bodies for dissection as many students were complaining to our Demonstrators. Everyone was dissatisfied at not being able to dissect and learn! 

So we trudged to our Principal, who was at VP Chest Institute. We stood outside while Dr AS Paintal, our Principal, stood at the top of the semicircular stairs... a small, fair, sprightly man... who was literally hopping mad! He told us to go to the then PM and ask her for bodies or shoot ourselves and lie down on the tables ourselves! Disillusioned, we returned back to Chemistry block after having some fruit chaat in front of Union Office on the way!

Dr Paintal had already reached there in his official White Ambassador and our sole doctor RP, Dr Suru Bindu got a dressing down for allowing us to leave class. He addressed us then saying we were like his children and to behave and be patient. His daughter Anita was in fact, one year our senior, studying in MAMC.

Blogger Note: They had quite a bone to pick with their Principal! But we are not done with the subject yet. As one story gets told, more memories arise. Let’s follow the Physiology link and dive back into the memory of a dark evening of a darker time. 

Another vivid memory......

It was in December when a rumour went around that the Pakistani aircraft had entered Indian airspace and flown near Tilpat range near Delhi.

That day, ‘B’ batch had their Physiology practicals first. We were in Red Fort waiting for our respective DTC buses and managed to reach our homes.

'A' batch had their practicals after lunch and reached Red Fort after 4pm. By then there was a blackout and all buses had been stopped from Red Fort. Our colleagues had to walk home and many had not reached home even by 11pm, to places like Lajpat Nagar. Frantic calls came to us from their parents and we had no clue either! That night we slept only after we got the news that all our batch mates had reached home safely, even in pitch darkness! Fancy such a situation for single girls in Delhi today. God was with all of us that day!

Blogger Note: The Indo-Pakistani War was fought between Dec 3-16, 1971. You can read more about it here)

🍾 From Russia with gum and other stories

By Biswajit Basu:

In Russia during the communist days, bartering was the only way to regal survival. It was only 4 Roubles for a bottle of sweet Abrau-Djurso Sampanskoye (champagne) while it cost more than 10 US$ in the Duty Free shop. I was only 21years old then and I stayed in a Russian champagne stupor for 3 months though I would not recommend it.

The Russians had kept the value of the Rouble at an absurdly high rate with respect to the US$ and all European currencies and so also the Indian Rupee. However, somethings were expensive in Russia like chewing gum, cigarettes, waterproofs etc. So instead of using money as the medium of exchange, we simply used x packets of Wrigley's for a hand driven torch generator. Or one plastic  raincoat for a Zenit camera and so on. 

As far as I remember, I had bought many cartons of these white ones. We did not indulge in these exchanges directly.  My steward or my Engine room Serang (Bosun) would report any nice offers being made by the Russian unloaders and then do the exchange next day.

Thus, if money is useless for exchange of goods, exchange will not stop. It will go on by barter! I had lots of stuff like that but they’ve all disappeared over the years. But I still have a prized Russian cap of mink bought with chewing gum! As far as the Russian cap is concerned I made Prithvi wear it this (2020) winter. It is grey like Tyson (husky pet dog) but much softer. Daddy often wore it too in winter.  Now I have a brown mink as well but bought only during my last trip in Siberia.  I always loved Russian Caps after seeing my German Dadu wear them.

Blogger note: Also called Ushanka hat, the cap raises more memories...

From Monisha Choudhury:

Daddy wore one too gifted by our Russian tenants downstairs. One of them used to teach me Russian on Ma’s insistence and the lady’s enthusiasm to teach me! Mr Nikolai from Minsk was our first tenant. He had never seen a ceiling fan before. One day he came to tell us it had fallen down. We were amazed with what we saw ... all the blades had bent down as if he had tried swinging from them!

⚛️ Med School Shenanigans: Dum Maro Dum

From Monisha Choudhury:

The year was 1973, when we shifted from the borrowed Chemistry block behind Vice Chancellor' s office of Delhi University to Safdarjung in our third year of MBBS. 

The place was the First floor lecture theatre at the new building of the Accidents and Emergency wing, borrowed by University College of Medical Sciences from Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi.

The topic: Hallucinogens

We were covering the Chapter on Hallucinogens by our then temporarily borrowed Professor from Maulana Azad Medical College....later she was my collegue in Lady Hardinge Medical College.

Dr Mehta, had a bee in her bonnet. She decided to teach us with actual examples or samples. She declared she was distributing sealed counted packets of 'The' medicines like Amphetamines and Mandrax for all of us to see and learn.Two demonstrators Jaya Kohli and Jaya Mirchandani I think, were given the task of counting them and after passing them down, collecting them at the end of the class. 

After class, they were duly collected but on counting more than half did not come back. Initially, Dr Mehta calmly requested to return the remaining packets and sent the two to collect them. Very few came back. Now Dr Mehta was getting really angry. 

She requested us to pass and throw them quietly in the coir red mats at the back of the class. But none came. 

Then she declared that this will result in a police case. Asked both the Jayas to lock the doors and man them till all the packets were returned. Nothing happened. 

It was lunchtime by now. We were hungry and though we knew who the probables were, we sat silently for their sake. The guys started screeching “Police Police” mimicking Dr Mehta's voice. 

Then, in desperation, she told us to throw them out of the window and sent both Jayas down to ground floor to collect whatever possible. We all peered to see the poor dears hunt between the bushes. Nothing! 

Fancy the boys parting with the booty! Some in those days were already experimenting. But we were getting exasperated and hungry and with great difficulty the girls got out. The boys were later let out as well without returning their free 'booty'. Dum maro dum for them!

🪆The Russian Odyssey - Part 2

The Russian saga continues...(read Part 1 here)

From Biswajit Basu:

The Black Sea, unlike the Mediterranean, was frozen and we sailed into Odessa through that stuff. It was miserably cold and I pined for India.  But Deepak Malhotra had a solution. We were carrying rawhides. Deepak said that before discharge, an inspector would come and if he found any infestations, he could quarantine the ship upto a month. Deepak said that he had placed the hides in such a way that the maggots would surely be seen. The inspector came, she was a lady and our Deepak was a dapper and handsome bloke. Sure enough they came out of the holds smiling and told the Captain that we we'll probably need 20-30days quarantine and we have to check into a hotel. This was like a vacation. I was in Hotel Krasny in Central Odessa. As I came to know later, my grandfather, Mr Sarada Prasad Mitra used to stay there too.

_{(Bristol Hotel, previously Hotel Krasnaya; Odessa)}

Blogger Note: This hotel has an interesting history. It was built in 1898-99 and called Bristol Hotel. During the Soviet era, it was rechristened to Hotel Krasnaya (means Red). It was closed down for renovations in 2002 and reopened again as Bristol Hotel in 2010.

_{(Taken from Wikipedia).} 

And now we return to the story unfolding in the icy winter of 1970-71:

We spent a nice wonderful warm month in Krasny. They were Bohemian days - only drinking, partying, dancing and seeing cultural events (The Swan Lake). It passed in a whirlwind. The Russian hosts were very nice.

But soon enough, it was back to routine work which was gruelling enough in its unrelenting cold.

In the meanwhile, our barter items dwindled. And we acquired brand new Russian watches, glassware, utility items, clothing etc. The watch I presented during Toto's (Asmita Basu) parents wedding was from that lot.

Days floated by like ice-cubes and we were finally declared fully loaded and ready to sail back to India.  We would sail one early morning.  It was January 1971.

In an early morning sailing, the Junior Engineer, working through the night has to prepare, try and warm up all the machinery which had been shivering in the cold for months and gladly sprang to action.

All this was going on satisfactorily when the telwala beckoned me from the entrance door.  

Our Engine Room door faced backward overlooking Hold 4. As I emerged into the blistering cold, I was greeted by an awesome and unearthly sight. The bows of a grey russian ship was about to hit us near No 4 hatch. It did. The towering monster hit us on our portside and started grazing our side like a purring cat. I watched in slow motion as much of our deck fittings including lifeboats transferred themselves to that ship and damaged our superstructure.

To give the devil his due, the Russians were fast and completed the repairs in less than a week.

Meanwhile during this week, we were in penury due to this unexpected delay. Those that could went for an evening out. The rest of us just wanted to go home.

Britto and Mascarenhas were our two Fitters and jolly men they were and always managed to make us laugh with Laurel & Hardy type mannerisms.

Well they had gone out on a drinking spree. When you left the ship they took your passport and gave you a voucher for rexchange on return.  There was a guard with a submachine gun to supervise. Mascarenhas jauntily handed the guard his voucher but Britto could not find his.  He searched up and down to no avail. The guard was telling him something but he would not listen. The guard ordered him to stand still and put his hand under his coat.

All hell broke loose. Mascarenhas picked up the gun leaning against the passportbox and pointed it at the guard who put his hands up.

All the trouble had taken place because Britto, in his drunken stupor, had worn his coat inside-out!  The guard merely decided to retrieve the voucher from the pocket by putting his hand in, which Mascarenhas thought was "inappropriate"

We sailed out in the morning and the Captain  announced that our entire ship's staff, including himself, were debarred from ever entering the USSR again.

We celebrated!

🪆The Russian Odyssey - Part 1

From Biswajit Basu:

Today I intend to tell you all how I got banned from Russia.

In was the very cold winter of 1970-71. I was posted on the Jalavijaya, a rickety ship built in early fifties (and then renovated in a French Shipyard with a complete midsection added-in without noticeable loss of speed).

_{(Jalavijaya, pic from ShipSpotting.com)}

So here I was, on this painted spinster, chugging along at 10 knots, southbound to Colombo (in Ceylon in those days) to bunker (which is the word for refuelling). We never got there. Off Vizag, in a storm, we broke our camshaft.  We did some temporary repairs at sea and limped into Colombo.  We ended up staying in Colombo for nearly 20 days instead of 20 hours!

We knew our next leg would be the longest, our next bunkering station being in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. So we started off again and we had entered the Straits of Madagascar and I heard our Capt Dhondy (a Parsi) say we were lucky to be behind a violent tropical cyclone but sometimes, these cyclones returned. 

_{(Cyclone Idai, 2019)}

As luck would have it, we were deep into the Straits and the barometer plunged and we braced ourselves for a roller-coaster ride on an 18 year old tub.

The storm picked us up and threw us around like a rag doll in a dog's mouth. In order to prevent the seawater from entering the starboard side (right when looking towards the bow), we rigged up a 4 inch thick wooden wall. I could practically hear the sea laugh at us as it smashed the wooden girders  into toothpick. 

I was all of 20 years old and I got a taste of what a violent sea can do. Our boiler failed (the tubes were leaking) and we had to go through a 5 ft long 4ft diameter furnace to put in plugs in the leaky pipes. Nobody was exempt and everyone had to go into boiler. The Chief Engineer, Girish Pratap, a gold medallist and my senior, went in first and established the rules - no more than 90 seconds in the furnace. In the process of doing this the second time, my foot fell into boiling water and I screamed in pain. I was asked to come out and a tall gangly old telwala bathed my foot in "cylinder oil" and it was miraculous. The pain eased and it healed very quickly. That darn "cylinder oil" should be marketed as a medicine for burns and scalds!

Then we stopped for a few minutes out at sea at Port Elizabeth to drop a sick sailor and continued on our way over mountainous seas around Cape of Good Hope (no stop).  Then over somewhat more benign seas to Las Palmas.  It had been 40 days from Colombo to Las Palmas de Gran Canarias! It was in a direction opposite Vasco da Gama's on his maiden voyage to India.

The crew told me conspiratorially that I ought to buy a good stock of Wrigley's Chewing Gum and a couple of raincoats. Deepak Malhotra, now settled in Bangalore, and the Third Officer then, told me that these were not for me at all but for barter-sale to Russians!

We sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar from  the grey Atlantic into tlhe calm blue sunny seas of thel Mediterranean.  On our left we sailed passed many countries that do not exist today like Yugoslavia. Then, as land closed in from 2 ends we sailed from the Sea of Marmara into the Black Sea. 

_{(Pictures from Turkish Strait Vessel Traffic Service)}

On the left bank, we watched creation of Turkish (Istanbul) gastronomy.  It seemed so close to the ladies that if they threw their ladles at us, it would hit our ship for sure!

We pressed on into milky whiteness as Odessa was our first destination.  It was slow and ponderous going through the thick fog. 

The Russian Odyssey continues here.