Club Days

It was a warm summer's afternoon. The scorching sun had just dipped below the tallest branches of the sheesham trees. A dusty breeze blew lazily around our house in Gorakhpur. My mother finished her tea, picked up a bundle of towels and announced that we were going to swim.I hardly knew what to make of this, after all I was just a little over four years old. There was a swimming pool behind the Railway Officers club. My mother was greatly fond of playing cards and often spent an evening there, playing Rummy with some other ladies. Every now and then the card tables became very silent and somewhat tense when they played a game called Bridge. I observed that usually at such times men would be playing as well. Suddenly the game would end and everyone would relax. Then someone would start saying things like 'when I played that Jack, you should have trumped', and then the other person would look crestfallen. Then the others would start saying 'don't have a postmortem' or 'buck up, we'll play again'; and then they would.While my mother played cards, my father would usually go outside and play tennis. I loved watching him running, serving, hitting forehands, backhands- a dazzling display of grace and skill. And then one day, he jumped up to challenge a lob. He landed on an twisted ankle and lay there in agony. He had broken his ankle. I sobbed so inconsolably, that even my father smiled despite his pain. So he joined the others at the card table, his lower leg encased in plaster. Many expressed astonishment at his hitherto unknown prowess at Bridge. He smiled wryly- he wasn't going to give away the fact that though he was really very good at it, he would rather play tennis.I would wander around, playing with the multi coloured Poker chips, and laying them around in designs until my nemesis, the old 'bearer' would take them away and clean up. A 'bearer' was the old colonial term for an attendant or waiter. One had to cultivate that certain imperious way of saying 'bearaah!', if one was an important person. I practiced in front of a mirror but it didn't work. I took to sitting under an old billiards table, which had massive black legs and a convenient cross bar beneath, on which I could perch. My nemesis knew exactly where I was, but he made a show of walking around, dusting this and that and clattering the billiard poles, wiping the score board. Then he would peer under the table and order me out. I would wander about disconsolately; somedays the bar tender would open a tin box with a sawdust coated interior. There, inside another smaller tin box, lay a few bottles of cold drinks and sodas. He would give me an IceCream Soda, and make an entry in a monthly account ledger. I loved that vanilla scented fizzy drink, except when I burped, the fizz would come up my nose and make me eyes water.Suddenly, with a great scraping of chairs, the evening would end, everyone rising almost at once. With a few exchange of pleasantries everyone would go home. Sometimes, my father would carry me on his shoulders, stepping away from low tree branches, as we went home.Where were the other children? I was always a loner- the quiet little dreamer. The other children, robust and vital, were running about in the Childrens Park next to the swimming pool, jumping from benches, teetering and tottering, swinging up and down on swings, rising and falling on the seesaws and whirling on the merry go rounds. They were under the watchful eyes of their ayahs, most of whom squatted by a shed, rubbing 'khaini' tobacco on the palm of of one hand with the thumb of the other. Then a swift sure movement would deposit this rubbed tobacco into an open mouth.I abhorred the merry go round. It made my stomach wobble and robbed me of my balance. I did not relish swaying and stumbling as I would get off. Mercifully, there were less positions on the merry go round than the number of enthusiasts. I would get away and hide in the club house- especially since I did not have an 'ayah' to keep me away from my parents.But the swimming pool? Oh that was something else. A feeling of unease when my feet did not touch the bottom. And it was there I had one of my life's most important lessons.
Posted by LinaS at 9:31 PM

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