Junior 'G':Bindu (1/7)
sha...@vax.sbu.ac.uk
Bindu : A Lady and A Vamp.
Chapter 1 - A Love Child.
My father, Nanubhai Desai hailed from Valsad, A district of
Gujarat. He was a film producer, settled in Lahore, because
that's where films were made before partition, he was a
spirited man with a large friends circle. Those days, you
needed to enable you to produce films, my father held a
license too. His many friends included Mehboob Khan, Motilal
and Chandramohan of Shakuntala Aur Dushyant fame.
After partition he migrated to Bombay, where he met my mother,
Jyotsna. She was not a Gujarati, but a Rajput and a very good
stage actress. It was love at first sight for them. They
braved all odds in those orthodox times and got married. My
father was a widower when he met my mother. His first wife was
an epileptic patient. He had three kids by her but
unfortunately, none of them lived beyond a year. Later, his
wife too died. My father loved kids and it broke his heart to
lose his kids one by one. That is why when I was born ,he
treated me like a priceless treasure. I am told I was called
'love child'.
He waited anxiously for me to complete a year. And when I did
so he made it an occasion to celebrate my birthday amid great
fanfare. He distributed sweets worth Rs. 400 to Rs. 500 to all
the houses in the Sonawala buildings, where we lived. They
were those special Banarasi sweets and very expensive. No
wonder the building people still remember the birthday.
When I was two-and-a-half-years old, I had a near fatal
accident. We used to live on the fourth floor and outside our
balcony was a small parapet. One day, there was a slight
drizzle and my mother was in the balcony reading. She assumed
that I was in one of the inside rooms, playing. But I had
wandered into the balcony and I toppled over the railing. It
was then that suddenly my mother heard someone from the
building opposite ours, shout, "ladki giri, ladki giri." She
looked across and saw her friend gesticulating and shouting
out to her. "Jyotiben, Jyotiben, tumhari ladki giri." That's
when my mother spotted me on the narrow parapet. Thankfully, I
had fallen in a manner that I was more on the inside than on
the outside. My father had gone to work and the servant was in
the kitchen. My mother was nervous, yet she dared not leave my
sight to move for help. By this time people had begun
gathering below the building and balconies of all the houses
were filled with people, all of them shouting, "don't shift
her or she'll fall."
My mother stood where she was, talking to me softly, "Bindu,
stretch out your hands towards me." I did exactly as
instructed. My mother then caught my hands and pulled me up to
safety. After this incident, I came down with high fever that
didn't leave me for several days. When my father came home, he
scolded my mother. But what could she have done? My mother had
hardly got over this shock when once again, history repeated
itself. This time I fell over the balcony on the other side of
the house. This was about two to four months after the
previous episode. The first time was at the balcony facing the
road. Now it was at the balcony facing the compound. It all
began with my red clip falling on the parapet. Someone had
told me once that if a crow sees anything red he flies away
with it. I didn't want to lose my clip and so jumped over the
parapet.
This time too someone from the neighbouring building called
out to my mother. MY mother being busy in the kitchen didn't
hear her. The neighbour sent her teenaged son to tell her. The
son said, "Tumhari ladki phirse giri." My mother exclaimed,
"Hey bhagwan!" She ran to the balcony, her heart in her mouth
and again helped me to climb over the wall. Thank God, I was
safe both the times!
I was a very pretty child. Very early I got used to people
saying, "itni khubsoorat bachchi hai... Ise sambhal ke rakho."
My father was very protective towards me. Coming from a very
pious brahmin family, he was a strict vegetarian. My mother,
being a Rajput, non-vegetarian food figured prominently in her
diet. But my father was very broadminded about it. He allowed
my mother to not only eat non-vegetarian food but also cook
the food after their marriage at home. He used to tell her,
"you've been eating it since childhood and it's difficult for
you to give it up now." We children got hooked on it because
of our mother and my raised no objections to this as long as
he got his pure vegetarian meals. However, this did not create
a lot of tension in my father's family. When our paternal
relatives came home we used to offer them tea and water in
silver tea-sets for they refused to touch our glass vessels as
they would become ashudh. I don't blame them. They were so
orthodox, the staunch brahmins who'd never entered their
kitchen without bathing. Their women wore a particular colour
saree for cooking their meals. That's how conservative they
were. I was and am still very fond of non-vegetarian food,
especially fish. I remember once when I was very young I'd
eaten dry fish for lunch. After my lunch, I strolled into the
kitchen and saw a piece of fish lying on a plate. My mother
had preserved that for the servant, but I couldn't control my
greed and I stole it. When the servant sat for his lunch, she
couldn't understand where his fish had disappeared. Assuming
the crow had taken it, he told this to my mother. My mother
believed the story but suddenly a thought struck her. "Where's
Bindu?" she asked. They found me hidden under a bed chewing
into the piece of fish. She laughed heartily and asked me to
come out. When I did so, she said, "why didn't you tell me you
wanted an extra piece? I would have given it to you. But you
musn't steal other people's share."
I've remembered that. You see, since my father was a producer
and earned substantially, we were quite well-to-do. It was a
happy life at Sonawala Buildings, Tardeo. Even though we had
to trudge up and down four storeys of the building several
times a day. I liked my old house. There were large rooms with
high ceilings. I was a lively but a solitude loving child. I
was my best company. Often, I'd entertain myself by dancing
from one room to the other. It was a habit with me and I
enjoyed indulging it it. This habit used to irritate my father
and he'd scold me saying, "what is all this nonsense you're up
to? All the time I see you dancing from here to there. It's a
bad habit and good girls don't behave like this."
Filmmakers Mehboob Khan, Motilalji and writer Rajinder Kishen,
often came home. I especially remember Sheikh Mukhtar, my
father's very dear friend. And only because he brought us
boxes of 'Kraft' cheese. Childhood was fun because we were a
large family. Of seven sisters and one brother. In the very
beginning I went to the Fellowship School at Gowalia Tank.
Later, I shifted to National High School, which was closer to
home. We used to commute by the school bus. My younger sisters
went to a different school, The Princess High School, at
Lamington Road. Evening was the best time because father was
at home.
My father was very possessive about his daughters. He had
fixed notions about how girls ought to be brought up... they
shouldn't keep late nights, they musn't talk loudly... He
often joked that he wouldn't allow any of us to get married,
so that we'd never leave him. Still, he never scolded me.
I was a very mischievous and a stubborn kid. One day, I
remember, I threw a tantrum because I wanted curds with my
food and since I had high fever and a bad cold, my mother
didn't want to give it to me. But my father indulged me.
"Doesn't matter, give her some," he told my mother. MY mother
scolded him, "why are you bent on spoiling her? Can't you hear
her cough?" Eventually, because we had some guests over for
lunch, my mother didn't want to make an issue and gave me my
curds. Even today, whenever I have a cold and I take curds, my
mother reminds me of this incident, but somehow a meal without
curds is incomplete for me.
Actually, my father was very innocent. We sisters often ragged
him. One particular incident stands out in my memory. My
father smoked a cigar after every meal which came in lovely
wooden boxes with a mirror fixed on the inside. We loved these
boxes and waited for the cigars to get over, so that we could
use them as pencil boxes. It was an object of great envy
amongst our friends, and I'd see to it that I'd open the box
and peer into the mirror from time to time, to show off. One
day, we sisters even tried smoking a cigar ourselves. There
was nobody at home, but when he returned, my father couldn't
understand how suddenly all his children were silent that
night. Since we had cleared the room of smoke, he couldn't get
suspicious. Later, however when he had finished his meal, he
noticed that one cigar was missing from the box. "Has anyone
taken a cigar from here? he asked us. "Come here," he called
me. "Did any of you touch my box? One cigar is missing!"
Frightened, I confessed, that we had all tried the taste. To
our utter surprise, instead of scolding us, he laughed loudly
and told us that little children ought to stay away from these
vices. "You've done it once, it's okay. But don't repeat this.
I won't scold you because you've told me the truth." Then,
with a twinkle in his eyes, he asked us, "By the way, how was
the taste?" We told him we didn't like it. And asked him how
come that when he smoked, we coughed, but he didn't.
"Experience," he replied. Till today, whenever I see someone
smoking cigars, I'm reminded of my father.
My mother who had stopped acting after marriage was busy with
the house while he had switched his business to the share
market. When we were young, my mother put us in identical
dresses, stitched to the same pattern. It was like a family
uniform. Quite like the film, The Sound Of Music. As we grew
up, all this changed. Then, it became more like Hindi films.
We were all ready to fight for each other. Once I remember, my
sister Jaya (who's married to music-director Laxmikant) was
ready to attack a boy eve-teasing me. She caught this boy by
his collar and said, "you dare come near my sisters." I felt a
wee bit embarrassed for by then a crowd had collected around.
I whispered to her, "let it be now, leave him, let him go,"
but she pushed me aside and said, "you keep out of this, I'll
manage." She saw to it that the crowd thrashed up this boy.
She hasn't changed in all these years. Whenever I'm exploited
or feel persecuted, she pushed me to fight my battle.
Life was happy and carefree, until one fine day came the
unexpected blow! My father died. The man I doted upon, looked
up to, was no more. And worse still, I was the head of the
family. And I was only 13!