Humor - May God Bless Pheluda

I am sitting at a roadside teashop-cum-general store in the tiny town of Chitai deep in the Kumaon Himalayas. The high Himalayas dazzle in the foreground. A lofty cumulus cloud swirls across the 23,500 foot summit of Mount Trisul – surely the most beautifuI mountain in the world (Kanchendzonga in the state of Sikkim comes in a close second). I have trekked for two hours and need a break. I suddenly notice a man walking across the road towards the little shop. He looks like a younger brother of the singer, Manna Dey. He is wearing soda-bottle spectacles of the type that was popular in the 1960s.

He has a haunted, furtive look in his eyes - the look of a Kolkata middle-class Bengali about to speak in Hindi. He reaches the little store and looks around. There is nobody around except for the store owner and me, sitting in a corner. I know what he is thinking - why couldn't the damn Himalayas be located closer to West Bengal, in someplace like Cooch Behar, for example? Why do they have to be located so far away from home, where they speak this foreign language? And who is that tanned, tired looking fellow in the corner? Why does he have to listen to me speak in Hindi?

He holds a Frooti tetrapack in his hand. He shows it to the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper pulls out another Frooti tetrapack, which looks slightly different from the one Pheluda (that is what we will call the Bengali gentleman since I do not know his name) is holding. Pheluda purses his lips and says "Yeh taa ek hi jeeneesh hai, na ki"?. What he is trying to say is "Yeh kya ek hi cheez hai, kya?" For a moment, the shopkeeper is flummoxed by this garbled combination of Bengali and Hindi, which is difficult to understand. But he recovers quickly and says "Haan". Pheluda buys six Frooti tetrapacks and walks back to his family across the road. Although it is a pleasant day, Pheluda's family is dressed for the Siberian winter, in sweaters, shawls and monkey-caps/ski-masks. They look like they are making a trip to a Vladivostok mall in January.

This strange mixture of Hindi and Bengali spoken by many Kolkata Bengalis is usually unintentionally hilarious, as the Bengali readers of this mail will know. Back at the hotel, there is another large Bengali family in residence. The group consists of several adults, a gaggle of children and the mandatory maiden aunt - Mashima. They are talking about the kinds of things that all Bengali tourists talk about - how expensive the hotel is, how hard it is to get decent food, and the regularity of their bowel movements ever since they got here. Mashima has a hacking cough and looks and sounds like Leena Chitnis in those Hindi movies from the 1950s. Those above 35 years of age will remember the movies they used to show on Doordarshan on Sunday evenings, in the good old days before cable TV arrived. Leena Chitnis always played the mother of the hero. She always had tubercolosis or some such wasting disease, coughed all the time, and died about two-thirds of the way through the movie. Even as a small child, my heart always sank when Leena Chitnis showed up on screen. Even then, I knew she was bad news. She always caused the hero unnecessary grief and anguish, and distracted him from his main job, which was to kick the villain's ass, and romance the heroine (heroines were usually amply proportioned in those days).

In the old days, the middle-class Bengali tourists used to arrive in Uttaranchal by the trainload, traveling from Howrah in what used to be called the "Kundu Special". The train was their home for weeks on end, while they traveled the length and breadth of the country. I do not know if the "Kundu Special" still runs.

I see Pheluda again. He is buying his family hot, sweet, oily "jilebis" from a roadside stall. Let me hasten to point out here that I feel genuine affection for Pheluda and his ilk. God bless their cholesterol-laden hearts. It is the Bengali budget tourist who keeps the tourism industry alive in Uttaranchal. Pheluda does not have much money, but he (and his brethren) always travel to new places every year. You have to admire their spirit of adventure and curiosity. Bengalis love to travel.

Besides, I am part-Bengali myself, and I can relate to Pheluda in some ways.

God bless Pheluda – forever may he roam.