( Jo miley khushk roti azad reh keh ; who khof aur zillat keh halluey se achhee hai ! Meaning… Earning dry bread with freedom of the soul is better than sweetmeats under fear and humiliation! )
Part II. The E- mail continued…
Well enough of philosophy… it is a tangent I always tend to trudge on and… on. Lets talk straight now and let me bare the facts. I opened shop…business…of ‘Liaison Representation of Industrial Houses ’…1980…with an office and 3 staff in a reasonably good commercial area with ONE company to Represent. Picked up a couple of more within a year and also picked up a Partner. Got married in 1981…the business grew and so did the family…a daughter in 1982. By 1987 we were doing good with around 14 companies / industries -- Indigenous as well Foreign to Represent…expanded and diversified towards Drilling of Tube wells and allied works with High Pressure Truck Mounted Drilling Machines…did well and earned a reputation in this field. I wouldn’t say some business’s but certainly some people…like me …have it in themselves to achieve both, ‘high and low’ at the same time…its like a roller coaster ride, one moment you are at the top and before you can savor the moment you are touching the bottom…that’s how I carried on with the undulations life had to offer, a fate accepted with determination and patience, to see its time through. Lessons of life are taught on platforms not familiar / similar with the / to the actual situations around.
To me, a true Aries’ man to the core…whose ‘mantra’ lay in the statement ‘bash on regardless’, one who was restless / impatient and wanted immediate results, the ‘patience game’ was never even a passing thought, till the lesson was taught through a medium of my understanding, a platform where the name of the game is ‘sheer patience’. Is it not said that the ways of God may sound queer but the lessons once taught are… once-for-all? To me the revelation was through ‘fishes’…sounds absurd but true. Bhopal has a way of growing on you and for people like me with latent genes of the erstwhile era… of ‘Raja’s & Nawabs’….’shooting and shikar’…it was the ideal ‘hunting’ ground. I took to Bhopal like…literally a fish takes to water. The ‘shikar or hunting’ was like in any other place but it was the ‘fishing’ or correctly ‘shooting fish with a Rifle’ a sport developed locally by the erstwhile ‘Nawabs’, a unique method which is still practiced with fervor in and around Bhopal, that caught my fancy…and let me assure you that the rigors of this sport, ‘pan’ out only the true lovers because this is of, as I said earlier…’sheer patience’ under severe parameters of heat, thirst and hunger but rewards, every so often, or even the ‘glimpses’ of it are more than enough to make you come back or look forward to indulge, over and over again. The fish in question is a fresh water fish from the family of the ‘cat fish’ locally known as ‘samal’, popularly known as ‘sole’. This fish has both, that is ‘gills’ like other fish to take in oxygen from water as well as a ‘respiratory system’ which comes into high play in thick of the summers when the temperatures rise and the oxygen content in the waters is reduced. It is then that this fish slowly comes up to the surface to breath directly from the atmosphere through inlets on its head. This whole process takes place in a few seconds, in which you have to sight the fish, aim your rifle, estimate the time when the fish would break the water to take in the air, shoot it when its breaking water otherwise the bullet is liable to miss because of technicalities like ‘refraction of objects in water’, angle of the shot whether ‘acute or obtuse’ etc…etc (the aftermath of a non-scoring shot is just like the bickering and arguments of fault-finding in a game of Bridge lost… but could have been won if….. ). So imagine sitting on the high banks of a river or perched precariously on a tree or a hot rocky cliffside, to gain height and angle, for hours in temperatures like over 40* C and beyond, sweat pouring down, maybe even in your eye’s, burning, with only short winks to ease it out, scanning the area in front for that few seconds sighting of the fish to make your sport and your day, throats parched, hunger pangs ignored since getting down to ease out would maybe, loosing a few opportunities of sighting… and so one carries on for hours, getting dehydrated but not willing to give up the ‘hope’ until finally the body gives out a warning of total ‘collapse’. This is how to… ‘fish with the fishes’, a sport not for the weak or in other words…a game of patience.
So the harsher years were not so harsh to endure because they did, once in a while, give a ‘glimpse’ of the rewards to come and that ‘thought’ itself was enough, to be ‘patient’ and wait for that moment of ‘the big catch’… lessons taught by none other than the ‘fishes’ themselves. Narration of all events during the course of years past will take time since life as such is based on continuity of incidences, episodes and happenings… which are best remembered and narrated when both…the throat as well as the brain are ‘lubricated’ enough for a smooth flow of thought and words…and so I await to catch up with you in person when we can make a two way conversation, over a drink, when we meet…hopefully in the near future…what is more easy and short is to present the ‘present’ in a form of a Balance Sheet, weighing and counter weighing Assets against Liabilities. In business the true health of a company is reflected through its balance sheet and I have found this to be true with us ‘mortals’ also. In the on-going process of life, leaving aside material things and related perspectives, it is your family, your friends who make your Assets, you richer and your life meaningful… and on this front I must say I am a ‘heavyweight’, with ‘none’ under the heading of liabilities. A loving, caring, understanding and a doting wife in Nandini, who has stuck with me through thick and thin, been strong when I was weak, gentle when I was down and forthright when I was wrong. One and Only daughter…Nanditta…23yrs who is no less than her mother in all above…she is a journalist having passed out from IIMC Delhi in 2003…a feature writer with newspaper “Business Standard”…also writes for their magazine “Gateway” and “Spend” and is based in Delhi. Then are the stalwarts, Sister Promila, Jijaji Vijay B Prasad, Ex-Air Force (they had come to Barrackpore in 1975…you may remember) both of them are gems, big morale boosters, sounding boards and support. Two nephews, both of them taking on the world in their different style and stride. A few hard core close friends with high RF (reliability factor), they are like pillions of fortitude, love, understanding and all their synonyms. Then comes my unmitigated family of friends, acquaintances and persons known…it is nearly the whole town. We, of the old sect of ‘bhopalis’ are also sometimes called the ‘Dai’s of Bhopal. ‘Dai’ means…a ‘Midwife’ who helps out during birth / deliverance of babies and knows the village and its secrets inside out, so you can imagine what I am trying to put across to you when I say I am lucky to be a ‘heavyweight’ earlier above.
Well, enough is enough, I have given you all the gist of having being able to survive at my own terms, be reasonably progressive, happy and contented to carry on with what I have reconstructed. Today I have ‘no regrets’ but I do miss you all and the path chosen but denied, and do sometimes go back again to take solace in the words… ‘ We are all victims, Anselmo. Our destinies are decided by the cosmic roll of the dice………….’.
With warm regards,
Vijay Chhiber
And so ended the pouring of emotions onto paper. I had spilt my heart out without hesitation to friends and colleagues of yester years whom I had not met for nearly half my life, knowing fully well that they would understand each and every word to the extent of what was exactly meant to convey…an understanding beyond the realms of comradeship which comes from its… closeness to the heart.
(Hum toh sab jhel ke aah pahunche kinare ke karib; magar tu khabardar ke toofan bhi heh aur girdab bhi !…Meaning…We have suffered all, survived and reached the shores but you be aware and forewarned that there are storms, gale’s and vicious whirlpools before you… cross over)
Concluded.
