Sepia Tales

Mom decided we ought to pay a visit to the temple town Nathdwara during our Christmas holidays. Dad made a fuss about the expense but Mom was firm: we hadn’t gone to pay our respects to the family deity, Shreenathji, for quite a while and we couldn’t put this off forever. Finally dad gave in and sent somebody from the factory to queue up at the railway station to buy the tickets for the family – which meant my parents and we three boys, the youngest of them being me and I was nine at that time. Cut to Nathdwara. The Nathdwara temple has eight darshans – which means, the temple gates are opened eight times a day to allow devotees to have a glimpse of the deity. The deity is adorned differently for each darshan hence each darshan is unique. Now, if you are devout, and in love with the deity, even with its form, you would like to have as many darshans as you can. So I announced to my mother, “Tomorrow I will have all eight darshans of Shreenathji.” “Hush!” said my mother. “You ca...

It's a summer afternoon in Chandni Chowk and you don't want to venture into the drafts of sauna heat. You are ten years old and are lying on your stomach, on a huge teakwood poster bed, reading Eric Ambler's Cause For Alarm . The window to your left is open but covered with a wet khus curtain to convert hot air into cool breeze. It's neither too bright nor too dark. Just enough light to read by. Swinging your legs in the air as you read, you suddenly hear a street hawker. He sings, "Peelay ras ganney ka!" Then comes the subheading yelled in a loud rustic voice... "Peelay thanda meetha ras wala!" He is selling sugarcane juice. Driven by curiosity, you rush to the window, lift the khus curtain a wee bit and peer down the narrow alley. There he is. A copperish brown man with a yellowed white saafa (head turban) standing next to his compact wooden press, the juice extractor, which he has stationed on the opposite building's porch. A pile of sugar...