Visiting Nana's old place - II

Nana has never been a conformist. He was a member of the RSS during the partition. He once mentioned in the passing that he inducted Atal Bihari Vajpayee into the RSS when the two were students, and room-mates, in DAV college, Kanpur. Following the Mahatma's assassination, nana was put behind the bars, as were a substantial number of other RSS members. In the prison, the story goes, he actively pursued two things : eating bananas, and reading Marx.

He read at least two books on Marx and Marxism, one of which was Das Kapital. So influenced was he by these books that when we was free again, he became a Marxist, and joined the CPI. He fought elections for the CPI from Jaipur, a place that has little clue of what communism is. He never won.

I always remembered the "saal", a dark and huge room on the ground floor of nana's place. It was separate from the apartment where the family lived, but was owned by nana. It made a perfect place for playing "dark room" -- hide-n-seek in the dark. I remember one day discovering posters of nana's election campaign there, with a much younger nana's photograph on them. The posters were then being used by my mama, a student of medicine, for his rough calculations. I wish some of them were retained.

Getting back to my theme, nana did not find a taxi that day. Time was of importance. I was to leave India in four more days. That everyone involved would find time the next day was highly unlikely. My cousin brother, who was the designated driver (with tight time constraints), was hardly willing to wait. It was decided that nana would not join us.

Chikki, my cousin, made secret calls to nani to allow nana to come. Nani stuck to her stand. However, she acceded to the demand that nana could leave home to catch a taxi at a nearby stand. If no taxi were to be found, he would have to come back. When she finished talking, Chikki had a mischievous shine in her eyes. I now think it was not because of any premonition, but only because doing anything secretly gets her excited.

So nana left. I was having some snacks when he arrived at my cousin's place. He did not succeed in finding a taxi. So he took a bus! For any 85 year old taking a Rajasthan roadways bus can be quite an experience. Then again, nana is not just any 85 year old.

We had snacks together, as he detailed some parts of my history which were quite unknown to me. Yes, they were interesting. At that time, though, all I could think of was that yes, we were going to be there!