Ooty - Retracing Life!

 

As the bus, winding its way up the verdant hills on a sunny, cheerful, crisp morning suddenly braked and stopped in front of a very English looking edifice with a vast open foreground cluttered with cars and trucks of different sizes, I was jerked out of my reverie. ‘Oh my…..yes, it is the same one!  The Gounder & Co'. But wait, why is the signage at the front displaying a different name? What happened?

I then realized what happened. Time happened. And with time, ageing happened. Change happened. After all, how many years, eh? Thirty? The mind did a quick math from 1986 to 2023. Thirty seven years! 37 years since I first stepped on this soil! The math is right  but the heart refuses to believe. For believing would stick the label of old man on me. In 37 years, everything on this planet gets old. No exceptions. Except perhaps memories. Which only get younger day by the day! Strange are the ways of time. The present doesn’t exactly look appealing.  The very same moment of present, when viewed through the prism of nostalgia 37 years hence looks very chocolaty, bitter- chocolaty, endearing and yes, tear-jerking!

This solo trip to Ooty after 37 years was not planned in advance but happened in a sudden gust of emotion the previous evening. It was meant to be a dusting up of memories and rekindling of near-dead fires. I had, therefore, planned this to be a daylong walking marathon, taking in the sights and sounds and streets and touristy chaos of the town.   From the Arts College hillock at one end to the Boat House at the other. Revisiting, in the process, every nook that was familiar, every building that stirred up memories.

As I got down the STC bus at Charing Cross, it suddenly dawned that revisiting the trodden path is fine but to accomplish that noble purpose, the paths should be recognizable! That it was a challenge, I could immediately acknowledge. I remembered that the HPF showroom (what was their by-line? Yes, “Photo – Cine – X-ray”) at the tri-junction of Charing Cross was a kind of landmark those days. Today it was nowhere to be seen. Of course, with HPF itself having been eaten up by that ravenous monster called time, how can any showroom of a ghost exist? (It is a jinx I carry  that wherever my work took me, the one industrial landmark of that place withered away after I left. I carry that lucky talisman with me, of granting  moksha to the most thriving & most living soul of the place – HPF in Ooty, Cachar Sugar Mill in Chargola and Central Coal fields in Charhi. The last one not yet dead but one foot in the grave)

After breakfast at Hotel Durga (what a fall! Its restaurant was one of the nicest and cleanest those days), I mustered the courage to take the most dreaded moment head on, first of all. Syndicate Bank – which rebooted life for me 37 years ago.  Of course,  it is very much there in its designated  place, not to worry. The same two storied building beside the petrol pump at Charing Cross. Only, the name board has changed. It is now a different bank post merger. I trudged up the road and took a vantage point across the road right opposite the building. I clearly remember the day 15^th October’86 when I first crossed the iron grilled gate and stepped into the building. So vividly I remember that day that it looks crazy now. I was wearing an orange dotted shirt. My cigarette pack was in my shirt pocket, which was the cynosure of all eyes in the bank, which I realized much later. All of twenty, that me, who crossed the iron gate to step into real life. For my first job!  

Like a sepia-tinted motion picture, every day of my two years in that building flashed across my mind, scene by scene. The stupid things I did in those two years, a few goods things as well, the many friends I made there, the serious looking bearded boss much older than his marriageable days, the always-drunk Malayali senior clerk, the midday tiffin carrier lunch provider Kalyanaraman (who always appeared in one single attire throughout the two years I spent – a soiled dark color pant and a black overcoat. Like the Rajini of Apoorva Ragangal) the Manager Sahib always inside his cabin (in fact, I never saw him outside his cabin ever except when he ventured out to answer nature's call), that day when cricketer Shivlal Yadav, our famous staff of Bangalore visited our branch, the choicest epithets our senior Kattabomman mustached Special assistant used for our Manager, the leisure room upstairs with TT and carrom but where more cards games were played than the other two…..every frame, every day, every moment flashed by as unending train of memories. This nostalgia is a terrible thing, no? It makes one yearn for the past which is never going to return. And we are aware that yearning for the past is a useless thing, a wasted effort, a wasted tear dropped.

After maybe about thirty minutes, I took a deep breath and stepped into the same iron gate.  What I saw depressed me. Nowhere that big banking hall, pillars and counters were to be seen. What presented itself was just a 20x20 hall with a handful of employees and a small manager cabin. What happened to all the space? Later I learnt that the bank surrendered most of the space as unnecessary,  to cut down on costs. After all, who wants a huge banking hall nowadays? Those were the days of bulky ledgers, accounts books, typewriters, big landline phones, telex machines (yes, there was a machine called telex). All have disappeared today and so has three-fourths of the space my original bank had. So has the number of customers! Those days our banking hall was chock-a-bloc with customers. Today I saw an empty 20x20 hall.

I trudged out before I attracted attention in that empty hall. It was painful. But had I seen a full sized hall with many staff and customers, the pain would have been more. This truncated and empty version of what was my karmabhumi 37 years before lessened the severity of the pain. After all, this is not the place I was yearning to see. This is not the picture I had carried in my head for 37 years! This one is different. It is someone else’s, not mine. I can safely now throw overboard the junk inside my head without any compunction. That bank is dead, long live the bank.

I started slowly walking towards the Arts College hill. Before I reached there, I took the left turn towards the road to Doddabeddah. In the hope of locating the first house where we stayed for a few months. Fat chance! Forget about locating the house, I could not even remember the exact gully which I had to take. I surrendered, turned back, walked towards the Arts college hillock and ascended. 

I reached the college play ground. Again a ballast of past memories hit me, when we used to play cricket in those grounds on weekends. I was a pathetic cricket player when the ball used was an actual cricket ball. If it is a rubber or tennis ball, I could place bat on ball with more frequency. With an actual cricket ball, my immediate priority those days was to stay away from the course of the ball to avoid getting hurt rather than make any serious attempt to obstruct the ball with the bat while batting or with the hand while fielding.  I clearly remember that cold evening when I was deployed at mid-on, the batsman spooned a lollypop towards me and all I needed to do was to put hand into the trajectory of the ball and it would have stuck. But as I had elaborated earlier, my priority was to steer clear of the ball at any cost. That day, I could not do even that  properly and the final impact point of the ball’s hyperbolic flight after it left the bat was on my spectacles. My glass broke. Luckily it did not crack up, the lens just popped out of the frame. That was my greatest cricketing adventure in life. There was another adventure played out on the grounds of Lawrence School, Lovedale during the course of another cricket match but I will let that pass. That adventure would remain with me forever. Ok, for the benefit of the curious, be it known that on that ground, while fielding at third man, I slipped and fell even though the ball was nowhere near thirdman)

With Arts College done, I retraced the route, crossed the bank again, this time not venturing to look at the building again, turned right towards the Botanical Gardens. Five minutes later, I found myself inside the Assembly Rooms Theaters. Now what shall I recount of the old Assembly Rooms inside my head? The lovely, unheard of English movies we watched there with smoke-filled intervals? Or the great coffee we could get in the stall? Or the warm wooden seats inside the hall providing heavenly comfort when it was bone-chilling cold outside? In fact, most of the movies we watched there could as well as have been without sound, for we could not understand most of what was spoken. No sub-titles those days, remember. But they were all great movies, no doubt on that. Don’t ask reasons. Even amidst our poverty, what with Rs.560 basic and Rs.480 DA and the total salary not crossing 1200 per month, we watched movies almost every week! Some of the most memorable movie watching experiences in my life so far was from Ooty - Karakattakkaran, Enga Ooru Paattukaran, Agni Nakshathram, Anna Nagar mudhal theru… endless list, countless  pleasure points!  One movie we watched in Assembly rooms was “Loaded Guns” starring Sophia Lauren, the sex bomb of the seventies. Do not ask what conversation we had post the movie watching.  That is for adults! Today’s Assembly Rooms appears a lot more sophisticated and touristy, what with displays of projectors  (kids! those days there was a thing called film rolls on which films were shot and projected in the theaters. Rewind and go back to the first para mentioning HPF), posters of yesteryear movies and photographs from the past. Assembly Rooms will thrive forever and thank God for that!

The mood lighter somewhat after seeing Assembly Rooms, I returned the same route (No Botanical gardens this time, too crowded and surprisingly not so loaded with memories for me except for the cute Hebron school girls scampering around) , and took the right uphill route to SBI & Shinkows.  As you trudge the uphill Mysore road from Charing Cross, a few landmarks of Ooty come up in succession. The first on the left is the Breeks School. What a riot we had on Saturdays, seeing the little darlings of Breeks streaming out of their school jail and thronging the streets, the Garden and the shops! 

The hormones were doing overtime duty those Saturdays! An absolute “poonthaliraada, pon malar sooda” moment for us then! Ok, after Breeks, on the right comes the Church. As if on cue, to repent for the sins that we committed  near Breeks just a few meters back.! A beautiful church in lovely locales. Did the mandatory cross as I passed it and trudged further up the road.

On the left there still stands the SBI Building. Now, many SBI buildings, to this date, carry this inexplicable majesty.  How they managed to get hold of historic Raj era edifices always beats me.  Just look at their branches at Mount Road, Madras, Dalhousie, Calcutta and now this Ooty main branch!  An absolute marvel! White palatial building with gardens, long driveways, trees, flowers and benches! Almost like the abode of a Jaipur Maharaja! Incidentally, SBI was the Central clearing house location those days for cheques. The employee of our Bank in-charge of clearing duty used to get Rs.50 auto fare to attend SBI clearing daily and 50 was a princely amount in 1986. For perspective, consider the fact that 50 bucks could get you four packets of good cigarettes, a quarter bottle of whiskey and one week of afternoon meals! It goes without saying that the employee used to walk to SBI but pocket the 50 anyway as auto-fare. It is not fraud or something, don't get into those lofty things. It is just chai-pani, pocket money. 50 to go to SBI & 50 for Extension counter trips! All done on foot!

With SBI done, I climbed further up the road to the top point from where the road forks into two, the one heading right  to Fingerpost, HPF and on to Mudumalai, Mysore and the one straight ahead to the Police Department Office and the Hospital. Right at that junction still stands the restaurant  Shinkows. Great place, good food and right ambience, then and now. It was a kind of pricey restaurant those days.  I remember our Bank had a yearly closing dinner party in that hotel in 1987. Our house was just a few meters further down the road. We were to meet in the hotel at 7.30 for dinner, the stiff faced manager & the bearded Sub Manager  also participants.  The unwritten rule was that everyone would arrive drunk, at least the men folk. We vidalai boys folk (did I say we? Correct it to “I”, for all my other room mates were teetotalers) arrived promptly fully sodden. I still remember that at half way through the dinner I sauntered out, nay, Bharatanatyamed out of the venerable Shinkows and snaked my way to my house. That was a talking point in the Bank for many days. The bearded gruff Sub-Manager boss immediately dispatched one of my roommates in my pursuit to ensure I take the right route to my home that night. He need not have bothered. For, I have a blemishless record of reaching home safely and without aid, each and every time after getting drunk, to this day.  Irrespective of whatever I do wrong otherwise. Perhaps I smell my way home and the smelling faculty gets better after drinks!

Ok, Shinkows done? Let me get on with "Ayyappan Down".  Before you wonder why Lord Ayyappa figures in this daylong Ooty sojourn of mine, let me explain. After the SBI junction, on the route to the Police Office, on the left comes a steep downward incline. That route was called the Ayyappan Down (or Ayyappan Up when we ascended). It was an Idukurippeyar (look up Elementary Tamil grammar for what Idukurippeyar is) because our senior colleague Ayyappan’s house was situated on the incline down, midway. Now, a few words about this Ayyappan. Whatever little spirit of adventure has stuck to me till now (even when the body is resisting but the mind is willing) is because of this phenomenal character called Ayyappan. He used to organize treks and expeditions across the Nilgiris those days. With his equally adventurous wife (manni for us) and his kid of five in tow! How can I forget the trek he organized and led for our staff to Glenmorgan dam and Pykara Lake! Total fun and enjoyment! Or the Nilgiri railway line trek upward from Kallar exclusively for me and my mates? Inside the office he was the epitome of the Communist rebel from Palakkad – Hobe na! Cholbe na! Outside office, he was Edmund Hilary and Amundsen combined together. Can we ever repay the kindness and hospitality Madam Ayyappan manni showered on us bachelors those days? (Along with another similar family, who I would not mention here now for he is still in touch)

The next pit stop was a little further down the road straight in the direction of the  Police Building.  Here I must pause. For a very emotional building,  next only to the Bank building. After SBI/Shinkows circle, down the road, there is a Police Building and Ayyappan temple on the right. Right across the street in front of the Ayyappan temple is Bharath Restaurant. It was closed on the day I embarked on this journey but during our heydays it was our Annadata. The young man (a Malayalee, name I forget) in charge of the eatery and his mother  used to prepare and serve fluffy and tasty Dosas, idlis and appams every morning for breakfast. I already mentioned that our afternoon meals  inside Office  were taken care of by the Rajnikant Annadata Kalyanaraman.  The night meals were earlier in Velmurugan Hotel just off Commercial road, during the days we were in Mahalakshmi Lodge in Walsham Road. Now when I say hotel, don’t carry big visions of a full- fledged restaurant with captains, waiters and servers. It was a hole in the wall eatery meant for the purpose of only eating and no extracurricular activities. You order parottas or dosas (the only two items available) even as you enter and by the time you park yourself on a chair, the parotta would be already waiting on the table. Lightning service, tasteless but cheap food that was our staple for many months. Monthly payment system, with the added privilege of ourselves updating the daily note book on what we ate and how much it cost. (Not that the owner was not looking, he had a nose for detecting who would honestly record and who would cheat). After we moved from the lodge to the house near the Hospital road mess (I am coming to that), our dinner was also in the same Bharat Restaurant.  Again self-recording of what you ate and paying monthly. 

Now comes the House!  Just opposite the Ayyappan temple and police office, after Bharat Restaurant. It was a two storeyed structure. The ground floor kind of rested below the road level so you could as well call it the basement. We stayed in the 2^nd floor of the building, which was actually first floor from the road level so we had only one flight of stairs to climb from the road. We occupied one of the three portions on the floor. The view from the balcony was fantastic. The valley down, Commercial Road and the Market. On a clear morning, we could even see the Elk Hill Murugan temple across the valley from our balcony.  The added attraction in our house was the presence of two teenage girls in the next portion. We were, you know, certified decent Bank employees so the parents of the girls were not too very worried.  But I must admit we had a whale of a time in that house where I stayed till I left Ooty. We had tiffs, we had disagreements, we had drinking bouts and we had everything a bachelor household would have in that house! It still stands, that is the comfort for me now. 

Well, what next? I dithered for a moment between going further down Hospital Road all the way up to the Railway station end and retracing the steps to go down to Market Road. I chose the latter. The Market road was a cacophony of tourists and vehicles today as it was those days. I leisurely strolled along beside the race course, took in the sights and sounds of auto rickshaws zooming past, woolens  & “home made chocolates’ sellers, the ubiquitous eucalyptus oil shops and emaciated ponies waiting for riders. In time, I reached the Railway Station.

This Station is a stuff of legend. The station itself is more than 100 years old, built by the British. It has still managed to retain its quaint charm and elegance. How many times it has hosted lovers in its portal and played Cupid! How many times it has been witness to tears of separation!  How many times it has been featured in films, mostly the Balu Mahendra, Kamal types! 

Some of the best Tamil film visuals of the eighties and nineties were shot around the Ooty Station and the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, a UNESCO heritage thing now. One doesn’t get tired visiting and reminiscing about the station and the blue mountain train that chugs along daily. Yes, they too have seen time flow by along the tracks. The steam engine is no more there. The Station itself has been modernized with a mini museum on the history of the NMR. I walked along the tracks for about 100 meters and then decided to turn back. It was getting a bit dark and cold as well. With great reluctance I exited the station and proceeded towards my last destination of the day – the Lake.

The Lake of today is not a pretty sight anymore and for old timers like me who come to prise out lost memories from the frozen warehouse called Time, it is an eyesore! It is way too crowded, the water has become dirtier and the number of tourist boats has multiplied many times.  My mind went back to the leisurely Sunday afternoons we used to spend in the boat house, hiring boats, self-rowing with all might and trying to prove to the world and the stupid tourists that we are locals and self-rowing is the manly thing to do rather than hiring motor boats. It is another matter that despite doing a decent job of rowing (rowing along the pathway leading to Lawrence School was our favourite), we never quite managed to return the boat properly to the parking bay.  And the one who managed to do it on any particular Sunday without much ridicule and hitting other boats was crowned the hero till the next week.

It was time now! Curtains! The sun was setting. The cold started biting. The lights were coming on in the town. The tourists were returning to their hotel room holes. The shopkeepers were winding up.  I trotted back to the Bus station, bought some hot, sweet tea and looked around for one last time. Time to go! Time to say goodbye to the place that has brought so much happiness to me in life, never mind it was only two years I spent there.

For what purpose do we return to it?

The past deceives, it is a huge void!

To what end are we sucked into it?

To be swallowed alive, to be destroyed?

 

Au revoir, Ooty! I will be back! I am aware that I too will be swallowed by the past and destroyed. But I will come back! For pain is the medicine for life. And you bring lots of pain to my life!