A rather amus­ing but also poignant mes­sage posted by Se­nior Jour­nal­ist SP Singh within min­utes of the news about death of In­dian auto in­dus­try baron Rahul Ba­jaj break­ing elicited many a re­sponse in var­i­ous so­cial me­dia groups. We took the lib­erty to ask SP Singh if we can share the mes­sage with our read­ers since it en­cap­su­lated mul­ti­ple emo­tions. Now that we have his con­sent, we are tak­ing the lib­erty and have also merged his counter-re­sponse to the feed­back the orig­i­nal mes­sage re­ceived, since it also men­tions a write up in the World Sikh News.  It’s a love re­quiem for a scooter, a sort of Valen­tine’s Day el­egy if there’s such a thing.– Ed, WSN 

IT WAS THE  EARLY 90s. WE HAD PAID FOR IT, AND THOUGHT IT WAS “HAMARA BA­JAJ.” I wanted to name it but was spoilt for choice – Saca­gawea or Roci­nante or Dap­ple.

I had al­ready missed nam­ing my bi­cy­cle La Poderosa (The Mo­tor­cy­cle Di­aries came in 1995, the movie in 2004.) Friends protested against any for­eign name, so we de­cided to call it Jam­nalal.

The coun­try was open­ing up. Scoot­ers were now avail­able on-de­mand, un­like the early 80s when we had to wait a cou­ple of years even for a Luna.

The Step­ney cover was all that they gave free with the Chetak. On it was em­bla­zoned, “Chunnu-Munnu De Papa Di Gaddi,” com­plete with the pic­ture of two lit­tle kids, one of them a cute Sikh with his hair tied up in a joora atop his head, cov­ered with a hanky fas­tened with a scrunchy.

 

There was some­thing about the Sar­dar kid – his beam­ing smile, some of his hair a lit­tle un­kempt re­fus­ing to crawl un­der the scrunchy, and his eyes sparkling with some mis­chief! That look was the rea­son I de­cided to live with that Step­ney cover.

It was kind of my pix. Hardly any ad­ver­tise­ments fea­tured a Sar­dar in those days, ex­cept for “Sar­dar Di Shaan – Simco Fixer” and I had lit­tle use of the ad­he­sive at the time, given the least no­tice­able side whiskers I yet had. So, I was al­right with my scooter pro­claim­ing to the town that it was “Chunnu-Munnu De Papa Di Gaddi” though it was my dad who had paid for it.

Over the years, Jam­nalal be­came a fam­ily mem­ber. It went with me to the of­fice, friends’ homes, par­ties. On tough days, there’ll be just the two of us at the Lodhi Gar­dens or in Mehrauli.

Over the last three decades, the world changed. Jam­nalal grew old, and then rested/​rusted.

For about two decades now, the scooter’s been gath­er­ing dust down­stairs. Mat­ter of fact, it’s been junk for these two decades. It’s there ‘coz I just could­n’t muster up the heart to ask the scrap fel­low to take it away! The Step­ney cover had lasted just a few months, and the scooter a decade more. Some­how, I ne­glected to find out all these years which of Rahul Ba­ja­j’s sons were named like that: whether Ra­jiv is Chunnu and San­jiv is Munnu or vice versa?

Chunnu-Munnu De Papa passed away to­day.

Do you think I should go con­dole, pat the torn seat cover, run my hand over the han­dle and whis­per to Jam­nalal, “It’s okay!” or a Chetak is too brave to need com­mis­er­a­tion?

_________

Jam­nalal, the scooter; Fikr Taunsvi & the Elec­tric­ity Pole – Is it all just Stuff?

Some of the friends have com­mented how ob­jects could come to mean a lot more than what they are. Some­one not re­ally known to me but who is in my phone’s con­tact list has writ­ten: “That scooter is­n’t junk. That is a pile of mem­o­ries.” The name un­der which this con­tac­t’s num­ber is saved does­n’t even re­veal if it’s a he or a she. And yet, it feels as if this per­son knows Jam­nalal so well, has got it ab­solutely right.

Ob­jects are strange things.

Scholar and au­thor Harpal Singh Pannu has nar­rated a chuckle-wor­thy anec­dote. Here it is – “ਫਿਕਰ ਤੌਂਸਵੀ ਦਾ ਅਪਣੇ ਅੱਬੂ ਦੇ ਸਾਈਕਲ ਵਾਲਾ ਬਿਰਤਾਂਤ ਸਾਕਾਰ ਹੋ ਗਿਆ। ਬਕੌਲ  ਫਿਕਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ, ਜਦੋਂ ਅੱਬਾ ਨੂੰ ਆਖਦੇ ਸਾਈਕਲ ਕਬਾੜੀਏ ਨੂੰ ਵੇਚ ਦੇਈਏ? ਗੁੱਸਾ ਅਸਮਾਨ ਛੁੰਹਦਾ। ਇਕ ਥਾਂ ਤੋਂ ਅੰਗੂਠੇ ਨਾਲ ਰਗੜ ਰਗੜ ਕੇ ਦਿਖਾਉਂਦੇ Made in Great Britain ਫਿਰ ਦਸਦੇ- ਸ਼ਾਮ ਨੂੰ ਜਦ ਅੱਧਾ ਸੂਰਜ ਧਰਤੀ ਤੋ ਉਪਰ ਹੋਵੇ ਅੱਧਾ ਹੇਠਾਂ, ਇਸਦਾ ਹੈਂਡਲ ਪੱਛਮ ਵੱਲ ਕਰਕੇ ਸਟੈਂਡ ਤੇ ਜਦੋ ਖੜ੍ਹਾ ਕਰੋਗੇ ਇਹਦਾ ਫਰੇਮ ਧਰਤੀ ਉਪਰ ਪੂਰੇ 60 ਡਿਗਰੀ ਦਾ ਕੋਣ ਬਣਾਉਂਦੈ…। ਜੂਨ ਮਹੀਨੇ ਦੀ ਸਿਖਰ ਦੁਪਹਿਰ ਜਦ ਅੱਬੂ ਸਣੇ ਸਾਰੇ ਸੁੱਤੇ ਪਏ ਸਨ ਮੈ ਸਾਈਕਲ ਮੋਢੇ ਤੇ ਚੁੱਕਿਆl ਨਦੀ ਕਿਨਾਰੇ ਜਾਕੇ ਇਧਰ ਉਧਰ ਇਸ ਤਰਾਂ ਦੇਖਿਆ ਜਿਵੇਂ ਆਸ਼ਕ ਮਾਸ਼ੂਕ ਨੂੰ ਲਿਖਿਆ ਖਤ ਲੈਟਰ ਬਕਸ ਵਿਚ ਪਾਣ ਤੋਂ ਪਹਿਲਾਂ ਸੱਜੇ ਖੱਬੇ ਦੇਖਦਾ ਹੈ, ਫਿਰ ਨਦੀ ਵਿਚ ਸੁੱਟ ਕੇ ਘਰ ਆ ਗਿਆ।”

In re­sponse, a friend, Surinder Pal, has very poignantly com­mented in a What­sApp group: “Some­times at­tach­ment is so dear that we can­not part with the same be­cause of its com­pany through thick and thin.”

Trust Pannu Sahib to come up with a gem like this one:

ਹਮ ਤੋ ਪੁਰਾਨੀ ਕਿਤਾਬੇਂ ਹੈਂ ਯਾਰੋ
ਹਮ ਕਹਾਂ ਬਿਕਤੇ ਹੈਂ ਰਿਸਾਲੋਂ ਕੀ ਤਰਹ.

Our re­la­tion­ship with ob­jects has fas­ci­nated me ever since I came across this 1984 mas­sacre-hit fam­ily in Del­hi’s Trilokpuri some years back. They had re­fused to shift to a much bet­ter ac­com­mo­da­tion the gov­ern­ment was giv­ing them — all be­cause they did not want to move away from the elec­tric­ity pole out­side their house.

We live in strange times: a so­ci­ety that places so much pre­mium on ma­te­r­ial pos­ses­sions, and yet very pi­ously stresses the worth­less­ness of ob­jects. Squeezed be­tween these oxy­moronic lay­ers, we of­ten fail to un­der­stand what ob­jects could mean.

That story has for­ever haunted me. I did write about it some­time back in the Pun­jabi Tri­bune, and later an up­dated ver­sion for the World Sikh News at the in­sis­tence of the very learned S Jag­mo­han Singh, an in­de­fati­ga­ble hu­man rights ac­tivist and com­mu­nity or­gan­iser based in Lud­hi­ana.

We live in strange times: a so­ci­ety that places so much pre­mium on ma­te­r­ial pos­ses­sions, and yet very pi­ously stresses the worth­less­ness of ob­jects. Squeezed be­tween these oxy­moronic lay­ers, we of­ten fail to un­der­stand what ob­jects could mean.

When we lost both our dogs, one af­ter the other, af­ter a decade and a half of life spent to­gether, we grap­pled with seem­ingly mun­dane is­sues like what to do with the leashes, the col­lars, the walk­ing stick that we al­ways car­ried while tak­ing them out for a walk, their toys, the food bowls, a lot of para­pher­na­lia. And come to think of it — they were JUST DOGS! And I could­n’t even talk about it to any­one, think­ing there must be peo­ple out there who would have lost a par­ent or a loved one, and who would have won­dered what to do with the stuff they would have found in their dead rel­a­tive’s closet!

The dogs’ leashes both­ered me, and the elec­tric­ity pole in that Trilokpuri street haunted me no end.

I was greatly helped by Daniel Miller’s re­mark­able book – The Com­fort of Things – that so richly ex­plained what ob­jects could mean to us. His later work, sim­ply called, “Stuff”, takes the ar­gu­ment even fur­ther, and ques­tions our con­cept of su­per­fi­cial­ity that we ap­ply to ob­jects.

Those who have watched Cast Away, the sur­vival drama film star­ring Tom Hanks, know that you can talk to a raggedy dirty vol­ley­ball and feel an acute pain of sep­a­ra­tion if you hap­pen to lose it.

Hav­ing met peo­ple who have cried rivers for the elec­tric­ity pole, I can un­der­stand the love and at­tach­ment that the old man in Taunsa Sharif must have had for the bi­cy­cle. Here, al­low me to share the story of that elec­tric­ity pole.

ਤ੍ਰਿਲੋਕਪੁਰੀ ਦੇ 36ਵੇਂ ਬਲਾਕ ਵਿੱਚ ਨਾਜ਼ਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਫੌਜੀ ਦੇ ਘਰ ਸਾਹਮਣੇ ਲੱਗੇ ਖੰਬੇ ਦੀ ਭੁੱਬ ਨਿਕਲ ਜਾਂਦੀ… “ਖੰਬੇ ਨੂੰ ਵੇਖ-ਵੇਖ ਮੈਂ ਵੱਡਾ ਹੋਇਆ ਸੀ, ਧੀ ਜੁਆਨ ਹੋਈ ਸੀ। ਖੰਬਾ ਛੱਡਿਆ ਨਹੀਂ ਜਾਂਦਾ, ਪੁੱਟ ਕੇ ਲਿਜਾ ਨਹੀਂ ਸਕਦੇ।” … ਹੁਣ ਤਾਂ ਖੰਬਾ ਘਰ ਦਾ ਜੀਅ ਹੋ ਗਿਆ ਸੀ। ਸਰਦੀਆਂ ਦੀਆਂ ਯੱਖ ਰਾਤਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਨਾਜ਼ਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਹੋਰਾਂ ਨੇ ਇਸ ਖੰਬੇ ਨਾਲ ਪਿੱਠ ਲਾ ਕੇ ਬੜੀ ਵਾਰੀ ਘੰਟਿਆਂ ਤੱਕ ਹਿੰਦੁਸਤਾਨੀ ਹਕੂਮਤ ਦੇ ਸਰਦ ਖ਼ੂਨ ਨੂੰ ਮਹਿਸੂਸ ਕੀਤਾ ਹੈ। ਸਵੇਰੇ ਘਰੋਂ ਨਿਕਲਣ ਲੱਗਿਆਂ ਖੰਬੇ ਨੂੰ ਪਿਆਰ ਨਾਲ ਹੱਥ ਲਾ ਕੇ ਨਿਕਲਦੇ ਹਨ, ਆਥਣੇ ਪਲੋਸ ਕੇ ਡਿਓੜ੍ਹੀ ਵੜਦੇ ਹਨ। ਜੋ ਉਹਨਾਂ ਦੱਸਿਆ, ਲਿਖਿਆ ਨਹੀਂ ਜਾਣਾ। ਜੋ ਉਹਨਾਂ ‘ਤੇ ਬੀਤੀ, ਉਹ ਮਹਿਸੂਸ ਕਰਨਾ ਸੰਭਵ ਨਹੀਂ। ਭਰੀਆਂ ਅੱਖੀਆਂ ਨਾਲ ਸਤਿ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਅਕਾਲ ਬੁਲਾ ਘਰੋਂ ਬਾਹਰ ਨਿਕਲਿਆ ਤਾਂ ਹੱਥ ਖੰਬੇ ਵੱਲ ਗਿਆ। ਪੱਥਰ ਦਾ ਸੀ ਪਰ ਮੁਲਾਇਮ ਜਾਪਿਆ ਸੀ। ਨਿਆਣੇ ਵੇਖਦੇ ਸਨ, ਇਸ ਲਈ ਜੱਫੀ ਨਹੀਂ ਸੀ ਪਾਈ ਗਈ ਖੰਬੇ ਨੂੰ।

Please click the link https://​bit.ly/​Elec­tric­i­ty­Pole­sOfT­rilokpuri to read the com­plete story.

Some­day, if you ever hap­pen to pass by that street in Trilokpuri, you might want to kiss that pole or cry sit­ting next to it. Af­ter my first visit to those very nar­row streets, I and my scooter would of­ten trudge through them, meet­ing res­i­dents and, at times, just go and see that elec­tric­ity pole again. Jam­nalal, we’ve been through a lot, to­gether.

Tom Han­ks’ char­ac­ter in “Cast Away” names that raggedy ball Wil­son. That’s when it be­comes so hu­man. Jam­nalal is, well, cer­tainly more than a scooter. Fikr Taunsvi used to say that La­hore was at­tached to his soul, a fact that the in­com­pa­ra­ble La­hori, Afzal Saahir of­ten re­minds us of. I am sure he would­n’t throw Jam­nalal in Sid­hwan Canal that passes by my child­hood home in Lud­hi­ana.

I have so of­ten tried nam­ing that elec­tric­ity pole in Trilokpuri, but noth­ing seemed ap­pro­pri­ate. Nazar Singh calls it “Put­tar”. It’s kind of an el­derly brother to me. Read the story and see if you can sug­gest a bet­ter one. I’m clearly very poor at chris­ten­ing a pole. Jam­nalal was young when I first tried. It’s now junk, a pile of mem­o­ries. And I’m still at it. It’s al­most an SOS now.

Read about the elec­tric­ity poles of Trilokpuri here:  https://​bit.ly/​Elec­tric­i­ty­Pole­sOfT­rilokpuri.