English Literature – Article ☆ Book Excerpt: Mission HAPPINESS – My Idyllic Life ☆ Mr. Jagat Singh Bisht

I will begin my story from the very beginning. I still feel nostalgic about those days. That was the most beautiful phase of life. Some friends from the kindergarten days are still in close touch. We remember old deeds vividly and gleefully share them with each other. 

Jabalpur, where I was born and brought up, is located in the heart of India. In the 1950s and 60s, it was a sleepy town with a rustic feel. There were the beautiful marble rocks of Bhedaghat and old Madan Mahal fort. 

It was known for the ordnance factories and military establishments, including the Grenadiers and Jammu and Kashmir Rifles regimental centres. It had the majestic building of the Madhya Pradesh High Court and divisional headquarters of the Indian Railways. 

The Robertson College and Government Engineering College occupied a place of pride among several educational institutions in the town.

The people were warm, witty, and outspoken. Acharya Vinoba Bhave termed the town as sanskardhani, the cultural capital. Acharya Rajneesh, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and Harishankar Parsai were steadily carving their niche during the time.

I was born in the year 1954 on the auspicious day of sharad purnima – the full moon day marking the end of monsoon season and celebrated as harvest festival in several parts of the country.  

My father came down from the Kumaon hills and set up a small business. He was simple, religious, and believed in ethical living. He moved barefoot and wore khadi. He was keen on our education which, he believed, would make us self-reliant. As for himself, he always dreamed of retiring to his birth place, Naula, on the banks of river Ramganga, after completing his worldly duties.

My first school was St. Joseph’s Convent, Ranjhi, Jabalpur. Our teachers in the school – Ms Johnson, Ms Stella, Ms Wilson, and Ms Anjali Banerjee – nurtured us with care. We learnt our first lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic and also in etiquette, manners, and discipline.

One morning, we had assembled for prayer, after which, Sister Jude summoned one of our classmates to the front. She asked sternly, “Why is your hair so long?” 

Then, she made him sit on a chair, took out scissors from the pockets of her tunic, and gave him a haircut. We felt amused and stunned.

Siqueira auntie’s stationery corner, just outside the school, was a place we visited almost every day to buy candy and toffees – orange candy and banta goli being the top favourites. We got our first drawing notebook, 4-line English handwriting notebook, and square-line arithmetic notebook from her.

On the other side of the school was a small church. After passing out from primary school, we went to St. Gabriel’s Higher Secondary School beyond the church. 

My fondest memories of childhood are from this school. Even before we had gone there, we had all heard about Dinkar sir. One could have loved him or hated him, but no one could ignore him. And he wouldn’t leave you alone either. He was just like an omnipresent policeman. You took one small wrong step, and you would find him staring down upon you. He was a sports lover and shared anecdotes about the West Indian cricketers and Brazilian footballers.

If I were to name one person from the school who has impacted my life the most, it would be Brother Frederick, my chemistry teacher. His unique way of teaching created love for Chemistry in me. 

We organized a science club, a magic club and a photography club. It was learning science by doing practical experiments. I remember assembling a telescope, a small radio transmitter, and designing a substitute for the Kipp’s apparatus. 

I assisted him in the Chemistry laboratory while at school and kept in touch with him till he left for heavenly abode. I revered him and he was always proud of me. 

When he was transferred from Jabalpur to Patna, we had gone to see him off at the railway station. I still remember, when the train started moving, I bid him good bye and started running on the platform along with the train and waving madly, with tears in my eyes. 

Under his guidance, I was selected as a national science talent scholar and got meritorious position in the Madhya Pradesh board examination. These achievements gave me confidence and earned respect for me.

The national science talent scholarship was prestigious. After clearing the written test, I went for the interview to Mumbai, along with Arunava Gupta and Pradip Mitra. We did a lot of sight-seeing and enjoyed our trip. 

The national council of educational research and training organized summer camps for us every year. I remember going to the university of Jaipur, Pachaiyappa’s college, Chennai, and Bhabha atomic research centre, Trombay, Mumbai.

Arunava went for further studies to the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur), Columbia university, and Stanford university. He has published numerous scientific research papers as a professor at the university of Alabama.

Pradip also went to the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and completed his doctorate from the university of Boston. He has 26 patents in IR technology and is the senior director, advanced development at Leonardo DRS electro-optical and infrared systems, Colleyville, Texas.

The other teachers of the school whom I remember with a lot of respect are Ms Prem Kheda, Brother John Bosco, Brother Joseph, Ms O D’Souza, Ms Kulkarni, Khare sir, Sharma sir, Shukla sir, Chaudhary sir, Mehra sir, Lazarus sir and Shrivastav sir. 

We had on one hand, Pandit sir, clad in dhoti-kurta, who taught us Sanskrit and on the other hand, a suited-booted Englishman, John Peak sir, who came to our school every year for a few months all the way from England to teach us English Grammar. The standard and commitment to academics was of a high order.

I still remember the midnight knock on our door. When I opened the door, there stood Khare sir, waving the newspaper Nav Bharat in his hand, “Jagat, you are in the merit list!” 

In those days, the results of Board examination were published in newspaper. He had gone to the newspaper office late in the night and managed to secure a copy.

Khare sir once took our entire class for a Hindi movie, Aradhana, starring Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore. 

We played a lot of games in the evenings – football, cricket, volleyball, badminton, table tennis, and what not. I enjoyed the 100 metres dash, played football, and cricket. Vigorous play and interactions with schoolmates helped a lot in broadening and building skills that proved helpful in later life.

Annual sports day was an occasion of joy. My mother and sisters were always there in the audience to watch me participate in athletic events. They felt proud when I won medals. Because of my overall performance in academics and sports, I was elected as the School Leader in the year 1970.

Some of my classmates were Ainsley Niblett, Avinash Gaikwad, Barkat Singh, Bijoy Mukherji, Cashmere Fernandez, Chandra Babu, Chandan Neogi, Hardit Singh, Kumud Chakrapani, Rebecca Mullick, Rita Basak, Rita Bhambani, Shanta Murthy, Samuel Walker, Shobha Pawar, K S Rajan, Ram Chandra Singh, Mahendra Parmar, Mukundan Menon, Prabir Mitra, Soumen DasGupta, Subir Bhattacharya, Ralph Tate, Thomas Alexander, Tapas Mukherji and Vijay Nair – each unique in his own way.

Mukundan was my closest friend right from the kindergarten days. His father worked in the Central Ordnance Depot and his mother was a teacher at the St. Joseph’s Convent. She prepared idlis and dosas every Sunday and I was always there. On the occasion of Onam every year, she prepared the most awesome payasam. 

Mukundan was invited to our home for the Diwali dinner every year. My mother prepared pahadi raita, chhole, daal wada, puris, and sooji ka halwa.

We used to go for long walks in the evenings. It was also snack time and we had bananas, roasted peanuts, and boiled eggs. 

Ranjeet Singh Uppal, whom we respectfully called veerji as he was elder, sometimes joined us for the walks. It was pitch dark and started raining one night when we were returning. Suddenly, Mukundan, Dinesh, and I slipped into a pothole. Ranjeet was walking slightly ahead of us and stood still inside the pothole.

We asked him, “Why didn’t you warn us?”

He said, “You all would have laughed at me. So, I let you fall. Now, we are all in the same boat.”

After completing graduation in Engineering, he went away to Dibrugarh to do a post-graduate diploma in petroleum technology. He retired as general manager (production) from the oil and natural gas corporation.

Dinesh Babbar was fond of movies, and we watched quite a few movies together. We were fans of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, and Dev Anand. Then came the era of Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan.

The neighbourhood where we resided was a community of love and warmth. Nainji, an elderly lady, would light up her tandoor (mud oven) by mid-day. We took dough from our home, and she made tandoori rotis for us. 

Another old lady, bebe, mother in Punjabi, would call out, “woye, chaar akkhaan wale, saag ban rahya hai, shaami aa jaain.”  A rough translation, “four-eyed man, we are cooking saag, join us in the evening.” Saag is a green vegetable made from mustard leaves. She called me a ‘four-eyed man’ affectionately as I wore glasses. 

I re-visited the school in the year 1976 in my new avatar as a Chemistry teacher and taught there for about three years – the happiest and most engaging period of my life. 

I genuinely love all my students of the time and feel proud of them. I remember most of them and am still in touch with some of them through social media. 

I had the honour of teaching along with Sharma sir, Mehra sir, Chaudhary sir, Dinkar sir, Ms Kulkarni, Ms Kheda, Ms Mandal, Ms Tobin, Ms Natarajan, Ms Pushpa, Brother Mani, Brother David, Brother Barnabas, Brother Philips, Brother Peter, and Brother William.

Travel makes you happy and provides a practical view of life. It gives you a glimpse of people, culture, and cuisine of different parts of the country. I took the students for educational tours on two occasions.

In the first trip, we visited Ajanta, Ellora, Daulatabad, Goa, and Mumbai. Some students experienced the sea, a beach, and a ferry for the first time. They visited a planetarium, an aquarium, and a couple of museums. They visited the Gateway of India, Elephanta Caves, and some grand old churches.

During our second excursion, we travelled by train to Patna, took a steamer from Mahendru Ghat to Nepal border, and enjoyed a bus ride through the hills to Kathmandu. We visited the Pashupatinath temple and went for sight-seeing around the city.

I was fascinated by the game of cricket. Don Bradman’s book, The Art of Cricket, was my guiding light. I had adopted cricket as a way of life. It helps you to develop sportsman spirit, accept defeat as well as victory, and is a gentleman’s game.  

I coached the school cricket team for a while. We felt proud when one of our students, C N Subramaniyam, represented Madhya Pradesh in the Cooch Behar Trophy.

Subramaniyam was a gifted leg spinner, who bowled a truly deceptive googly, at a decent pace. He was a classy batsman and an outstanding fielder. We all felt that he deserved to represent our country in international matches. 

He captained Madhya Pradesh and went on to play for the central zone. He participated in the C K Nayudu Trophy and shined against England and Pakistan school boys.

Ajay Suri was the skipper of the Ranjhi cricket club. Gurmeet Matharu was our wicket keeper, Gopal Joshi – left arm spinner, and yours truly – medium pacer. We participated in open tournaments. In one of matches, I bagged 7 wickets for 30 runs against the vehicle factory team.

Mela Singh uncle, Gurmeet’s dad, loved cricket even at his grand age. He used to call me “Jaagtt”. We played tennis ball cricket in the lawn inside their residence. 

I went with him on his old Vespa scooter to watch all the matches in town. He was a master craftsman, won award for making santoor (musical instrument), and sang shabad-kirtans (religious hymns) in the gurudwara.

Harjinder Pal, uncleji’s eldest son, studied with me. He was fond of doughnuts and cream rolls. He trained with Pandit Shiv Kumar for years and plays santoor, a musical instrument. 

We went for long walks, really long ones. Once we went from our place in Ranjhi to 506 army base workshop – Aamanala – Dumna – Pipariya – Khamaria and back home. On another occasion, it was vehicle factory estate – agriculture college – city – sadar and back. On reaching home, he proclaimed, “I have broken all my previous and further records!”

During my student days, I regularly wrote letters to the editors that were published in the Indian Express, Times of India, Blitz, and Nav Bharat. 

In the year 2005, some of us from the Class of 1971 visited our alma mater. The school was gracious to arrange a beautiful cultural programme and friendly cricket match for us. We enjoyed alumni re-union at the Kanha national park, where we saw tigers from close quarters.

I studied at the government science college, Jabalpur from the year 1971 to 1974 and completed my bachelor’s degree. 

The professors were highly knowledgeable and imparted quality education. Professor Mahalaha was ambidextrous and wrote on the black board with both hands proficiently. 

Professor Handa, probably the tallest man in town, drove his car with his neck stretching out of the window. Before the close of class, he would ask, “Any questions?” 

When we kept quiet, he would remark, “Very intelligent!”

Those were days of fun as well as serious study. We – Vijay Bajaj, Arvind Harshey, Vijay Chourey and yours truly – were the four musketeers of our class. 

Arvind stayed in the government colony close by, Bajaj stayed on the Narmada Road, Chourey had his residence in the Satna building, and I came all the way from Ranjhi. 

After class, we used to stand at a nearby square and talk, talk, talk. Our discussions were not on any particular topic, nor meaningful by any means, but always full of fun and frolic. We used to laugh a lot for no reason.

Arvind had a baby face. When he went to the office to collect scholarship for the first time, the clerk refused to hand over the money, as he looked too young, and asked him to bring his father along to receive the amount.

A classmate was having a one-sided love affair with one of the girls in our class. He sent her a poetic love letter. Soon he got a reply from her. The reply was spiritual in nature, with the concluding words, “Ishwar aapko sadbuddhi de,” which means, “May God give you good sense.”

Vijay Chourey proceeded to pursue Bachelor of Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and from there to the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai for master of technology. He worked for the Tatas all through and was the chief corporate safety at the Tata power company in Mumbai.

Arvind Harshey worked for the life insurance corporation and Vijay Bajaj served in the bank of Baroda.

I went to the department of chemistry at the university of Jabalpur for my master’s. After its completion, I registered for my doctorate at the department of applied chemistry in the government engineering college under Dr C.V.P. Pillai. He was the best guide one could aspire for and one of the finest human beings I have been met. 

I worked on my project for three years but could not complete it as my guide had to leave for an overseas assignment. I had the option to continue my research work and submit the thesis in due course but, in my wisdom, or the lack of it, I decided to leave it there. 

My humble beginnings did not prevent me from dreaming big. Sincere devotion and deep engagement with studies was the key to whatever little success I may have achieved in my life. Knowledge and wisdom are virtues revered ubiquitously across all cultures. Sports and games broadened and built my physical and emotional skills. Playfulness and zest might have made a few enemies but helped me in developing warm relations.