The Good,The Bad & The Googly

I was sitting at Paris Airport (Charles De Gaulle airport) on that bright sunny morning, basking excitedly in the beaming sun rays that passed through the glazing. The previous day evening, I received very bad news that my flight to Valencia, Spain has been canceled (news I never longed to hear after a ten hours long transit from Chennai to Paris in the gigantic Air India aircraft). They said that my journey has been rescheduled via Zurich and that too on the next morning, but we shall get a cozy bed, a good dinner and a tolerable breakfast at the adjacent IBIS star hotel free of cost. The breakfast was indeed delicious (more than tolerable) and good night sleep in the well-cushioned bed (with mild music delivered through the intercom), though only for four hours, had made me feel fresh once again.

 In front of me sat Jonathan Paul, whom I met at the hotel and who had faced the same trauma as me. He spoke to me about his experiences during his visit to India. Though Indian by birth, he was brought up in Johannesburg (South Africa), lost his parents in his early childhood, but is now well – settled as a senior automobile mechanic at Kuala Lumpur. He said he has visited the “magnificent” (his word, by the by) Guruvayur temple of Kerala where he drank a lot of “rasam” and enjoyed it in full. He remembers having tasted the world-famous “lassi” of Varanasi also, though that sent him to a hospital bed for two full days (he was on saline on the first day) as his stomach protested voraciously (since his stomach lacked sportsmanship, perhaps). I enjoyed his company (though I am not sure how much he enjoyed mine). He was short (for that reason, everybody, except my wife, looks very short in front of me), a bit more than five feet in height, dark and bulky. As the announcement for boarding the flight came, he stood up, shook my hands very vigorously, paining my shoulders ( he did not know I had an ayurvedic treatment recently) and walked swiftly to the check-in counter, carrying two huge suitcases in both of his hands ( both of those coffers together must have weighed more than twice my body weight, but he carried them as if they were two tiny flower bouquets). I watched him moving, but my engineering sense murmured that there is something wrong (a researcher’s habit, no doubt). Yes, there was something wrong.

He walked on two artificial legs!

A sudden prick in my heart, which I struggled to swallow.

AT ZURICH………….       

It was raining in Zurich and the tall Sal trees swaying swiftly in the downpour reminded me of our own NIT campus at Durgapur (where I have spent four decades of my life). No doubt, the scene made me feel a bit homesick. The young damsel sitting beside me had used a powerful perfume and that made me feel comfortable (my girl students use intoxicating perfumes and that used to make me more furious during the viva –voice test when they give very stupid answers to my very intelligent questions). As I anticipated, she took out her cell phone from her wallet and glued to her ear. It appeared nobody answered the call. As she took out her mobile, something slipped partly out of her vanity bag. My eyes stuck on that sheet of paper as I could clearly read: VELLORE MEDICAL COLLEGE HOSPITAL. With enthusiasm, I asked the girl :

“ Are you coming from Vellore? ”

She turned to me and nodded.

“Yes, Sir. Have you visited Vellore? It is in India ”.

I suppressed a smile and said :

“ I have not visited Vellore hospital as I hate to go to hospitals (which are full of sick people), but I know of Vellore very well.”

She appeared a bit surprised:

“ Have you visited India, Sir? If so, when?”

“I had been to India till last week.”

“Really? For what purpose? Only as a tourist ?”

“ No, my girl. I am born in India, I work in India, I stay in India”.

She stared at me in disbelief (as if she had heard a Jeffrey Archer mystery). I do not blame her either since many delegates who meet me at International conferences abroad used to introduce :

“ Sir, I am Tiwari from India, I am Venkat from India, etc. etc.”

When I hand over my card to them, they used to stare at it and my face alternately, at least ten times. Here also, as I passed my card to her, a million-dollar smile (studded with astonishment) sparkled on her face (a smile, much sweeter than that of Madhuri Dixit or Aishwarya Rai or even my favorite of Malayalam serials, Meera Muralidharan).

“ Whom did you visit at Vellore hospital ?”

I asked her. Now, her smile faded, she turned away her face a bit. I could hear her low - toned voice :

“I went for my own check-up, Sir”.

The announcement came loudly that my flight shall take off thirty minutes late. The rain continued to lash vehemently outside. Golden-haired, blue-eyed couples who arrived hand in hand, sat around us with impatient faces. I listened to what all she said (most of them appeared as whispers to me), though I felt later that I should not have. My engineering knowledge now made me recognize that she is wearing a wig and there are tiny, red patches below her eyes. One more announcement. She ( Prameela Grace, her name) stood up, touched my feet and asked :

“ Shall I say, we shall meet again, Sir? ”

There was a mischievous smile on her lips. I sat frozen, my lips refused to move. As she walked slowly towards the check-in counter, I could not resist watching her cat-walk. It was difficult (very difficult) for me to concede that I am watching a person who is destined to leave this material world (this beautiful earth) within twenty to thirty days. Cancer viruses have done their job. No, no, I do not want to think over it. Never, never. I looked around to make sure that nobody had noticed that my eyes have welled ( I used to talk of Cancerian viruses as examples of symbiotic microbes during my lectures. After my encounter with Prameela, I stopped uttering that word cancer in my classes forever).

AT FRANKFURT……………….

“ Wo ist Ihr Vaterland? ”

A fair-complexioned lady, whose body weight would be a little less than 240 kg, asked me as she sat down on the plastic chair adjacent to me (taking special care that the chair did not break).

“Ich komme aus Indien”, I answered.

If you got a bit baffled of what we talked about, don’t bother. She asked me where are my “fatherland” ( in Germany, your country is your father and not your mother) and I answered that I come from India. It was the evening hours at Frankfurt airport. Though the digital clock read 8.15 PM, there was bright sunshine outside (the Sun never sets in Europe – who said it ? ). The lady talked profusely, chewing giant-sized sandwiches. After finishing all the five sandwiches she had with her, she stood up and went to the nearby coffee shop to have one more. A bit relieved, I sat back on my chair. I had seen the girl in churidar (with long, black hair and thick-framed glasses) standing at a distance and looking around desperately. Her dress, her tanned complexion ( that reminds you of Bipasha Basu ) clearly told me that she is an Indian. I asked her :

“ Whom are you searching? Your boyfriend left you alone?”

She laughed very loud and replied in a loud voice :

“ No, uncle. I want to change the rupees I have into Euros. Where could I do that?”

From her thundering voice and her accent that smelt very much of Hilsa, it was very easy for me to guess that she hails from the City of Joy, the city where no music is music except “robindro - songeet”, where a man called Satyajit Ray is worshipped more than Goddess Durga. I pointed out to a counter which had a signboard reading “Money Changers” and she ran to that counter like an antelope, with her bag wound tightly over her back, after thanking me in very loud voice ( the speed with which she ran to the counter and came back would have made P. T. Usha feel ashamed ). She told me that she is called Goutumi Bhoumick and is proceeding to Amsterdam to join the university there as a research fellow.

“And you have come alone? ”

I asked her with a bit of surprise in my voice.

“Why not, Sir? Is it wrong? ”

Her voice reverberated once again.

“No, not at all ”, I said.

At the bottom of my heart, I did compliment her confidence, her adventurous spirit ( I did not say it aloud, as I have the habit of not complimenting my students openly for fear of that could spoil them). At NIT, where I used to teach, mothers accompany their daughters from Calcutta to Durgapur for fear of sending them alone. One mother came to Durgapur, rented a house and stayed there for four years until her dear daughter completed writing all the engineering examinations. But, here is a girl who must have told her parents, “aami Amsterdam jachee”, in the same tone as a schoolgirl tells her teacher, “aami bathroom jachee”.

“But you must follow two very important restrictions”, I said to her.

Her eyes got enlarged and she stared at me with due curiosity.

“First, you must stop talking so loud. Second, you should restrict the consumption of rasagollas.”

I could see a large metallic box of Haldiram’s sugar balls that was protruding out from the bag she was carrying on her back. She laughed loud again, but immediately covered her mouth ( recalling what I said ).

“OK, Sir, OK”.

She struggled hard to suppress a loud giggle. I like your spirit, your will-power, my dear girl. You remind me of one of my favorite students who passed out from NIT, to whom I presented a copy of one of the books on Bioprocess engineering authored by me, as she scored brilliantly in the paper I taught. I am sure she would also go Goutumi’s way and encourage me to recite that statement again and again in the classrooms ( though that could also encourage my students to use earplugs ):

“Impossible is a word that exists only in the dictionary of fools.”