Haunted by the status of a beggar….. (Part 1)

Allured by reel life – Prior to begin with this spicy story of one of my distant cousin brothers, it’,s worth mentioning something about him as the main lead character of the story. He was enough elder to me. We both being as the native of the same foothill city of a small size. About his educational background, he was so poorly educated. In the sense that hardly he could qualify for a post  of a peon in any government department. Apart from it, as the story begins in the seventh decade of the last century, he was badly charmed with the dazzling  life style of Bombay cine world. This made him to learn something which belonged to that cine world, so that help him feel a proximity to that world. This made him to find some job in our small city to one of the cine halls .

He succeeded in his this drive by securing a job as a ‘door keeper’  in one of the cinema halls. Gradually by developing contact with the ‘ film projector operator’ of the cinema hall he managed to learn the skill to operate the film projector and became an assistant to him. With the passing of time, he became an efficient ‘film projector operator’. This made him to win a job of ‘film projector operator’ at some another cinema hall of the city. Though, he was happy with that but not contented with the status. By virtue of  his vocation or demand of running the film projector and flashing the ‘movies’ on screen, in major part of his diurnal life he began to take himself as the part and parcel of that world. This silver screen’s reel life fascinated him so deeply that day in, day out, he remained engrossed living in that imaginary life, imitating himself as one of them. His sartorial imitative eccentricity and mannerism helped to develop an impulse in him that he was born to become as one of them.

In personal appearance and outlook , he was nowhere near to the handsomeness of cine heroes, but it costs nothing to imagine oneself as one of them. He ever contemplated to become  a hero in some film. And if not that then a side hero, if not, then a lead character in some film. At the worst, he took himself as a successful film director whose name in a certainty was destined to appear on the cine hoardings and cine review magazines. This was a general propensity of the youth of that time that engulfed  a big numbers of ‘ do nothing’ of that period of time. Still this phenomenon is apparent in our society. This impels thousands of youth every day to board surreptitiously on the trains from their cities, which take them to Bombay with a desire to become hero or heroine there. Infested badly by this desire, one day he announced his plan to his family and despite of the repugnance from the family front, he collected his bag and baggage and fled to Bombay.

Harsh realities of life – As it was to happen or it occurs with 99.9% of such absconders or aspirants, his all silvery dreams got shattered when he landed at Bombay city. Struggling hard there, doing various servile and menial jobs there, he hardly could succeed to become a ‘spot boy’ there only. Though later on he was conferred as the sixth or seventh assistant director post to some another assistant director of some third grade movie. But this helped him kindle his hopes. But as the luck would have it, with the passing of time, he realized that his dreams can’t come true. His wretched position forced him to apply his hands in some other vocation, and as such a would be promising film director of the coming future became a cab-driver in the Bombay city.

During this all, he never disconnected himself from his family tie. Whenever he found the time he managed to visit back in the home town. There he always sung the spurious stories of his success as an assistant film director who in near future was to become a lead first director. But his parents and family members were much more sagacious than him and knew that day is to come when he would land back to the premise of the home town. But he too was a man of mettle. Whatever were the adverse circumstances, he didn’t give up. He, in his new vocation as cab driver worked harder and harder and at the beginning by hiring cab on daily basis began earning a good deal of money that helped  ameliorating his position. Luck too favored him and after a long struggle as  a cab driver gradually he became owner of some cabs and turned up into a ‘petty transporter.’

One thing he ever remembered about himself that he was  basically a cab- driver. So he never eschewed himself from running his personal cab as a driver. When my this cousin got properly settled, he in his prosperous days managed to buy a one room accommodation in a ‘ chaal” ( a kind of old tenement building.) This accommodation was closer to his ‘ taxi stand.’ As per custom all such public-cabs remained stationed there at night. Not only this, his false success stories as an assistant director won him back a position in home town. This was owing to the fact, he intermittently visited his parental family loaded with the colorful stories of cine world and his high connection there. Those stories were supposed to be true since there existed no means to verify them from a distance of thousand miles. These spurious boasting helped him got wed locked with a decent girl but never he ventured to take his wife along with him. She used to stay back with in- laws, though now he began to visit frequently home town, may be for lustful affection for his better half. Penned by– Vinay Pharasi….(end of the part 1 )