Kunwar mama...

He was fond of kids, and kids were fond of him.

We were five kids in the house and umpteen others in and around the neighborhood. When we got together, there was a hullabaloo.

One day, he took around 9-10 of us to the ‘झंडे का मेला' in an open hood jeep. On the way, as we passed through lanes and by lanes of some mohalla, urchins ran after the jeep shouting ‘circus ki jeep, circus ki jeep!’ on reaching the parking area, an abaya clad women exclaimed, ‘हाई अल्लाह, इतने सारे!’ to which he answered, ‘बेगम, आधे तौ घर may रह गये है!’ His sense of humor was beyond comparison।

Imagine how 5 rowdy kids can create a ruckus in a house where adults did wanted to take a nap in the afternoon, or simply wanted us to get busy with something so as not to bother them with trivia. An idea struck him, and he asked us to get pen and paper, sit near the main gate and start noting down the registration number of all vehicles that passed through that road in front of our compound. The game came with a reward and a warning: Reward I do not recall but the warning was, ‘I know all the vehicles in the city, so do not try to cook up numbers!’ we all religiously observed all numbers and made a long list. I am sure someone would have certainly wondered how this man remembered so many numbers!

One day he declared that his plants and he spoke to each other. We did not believed until we saw him talking to a plant, and this plant swayed in different direction - which he pointed out as it's communication style which only he could decode! His exhaling did the trick, and innocent we were awestruck.

He was very fond of gardening and at one time we had some 20+ varieties of roses blooming in our big garden. And then there were hollyhocks, marigold, holy basin, creepers, climbers, lily, dracaena, laburnum, and many others. In addition, the compound was surrounded by some 8 leechi, three mango, one guava, and two plum trees.

I could never climb the leechi tree, so guava was the best one to climb and pluck the fruit. He would shout at us when he saw us devour the raw fruit. ‘if you eat this today, in a day or two a guava tree will start growing in your stomach, and its branches will protrude from your ears and mouth.” We were scared of what he said; visualizing an open mouth forever was scary!

A small kid kept his broken tooth in his pocket and showed kunwar mama his treasure. The next moment this kid ran back to his house when mamaji pulled out and kept his denture on his palm and showed it to the kid!

One way to get some money from him for the small expenses we could afford was by pulling out white hair from his head. He had several and we were sure cash flow from his end would never cease. But there was a condition attached: ‘only white hair, no gray or black’ we earned 1 paisa per white hair.

He used to run a workshop. Some spare part boxes used to come with a 1 Re coin inside them. I remember he used to ask me to open few [always 1 in a single day] and the coin would be mine. 1 Re would fetch atleast 5 toffees those days.

Out of the numerous 1-2 liter car paint boxes he used to make अंगेठी for us – drilling crude 3 holes on either sides of the cylindrical boxes, and then inserting wires criss-crossing the hollow part was how this device was finalized for use. On top of the mesh we used to put twigs and light a fire. He added coal later and we would have our own अंगेठी during winter.

These are incidents that I remember vividly. There are umpteen which I don't recall today. He was and will always remain so dear to all of us in the family.