My Dabang Uncle

Beta, hum apne zamane mein dabang thay…. Son, during my time, I used to be a fearless man. So said an eighty-seven-year-old man in an extremely calm tone while sitting on his wooden chair with a pillow to support his back. Met the gentleman, whom I addressed as Uncle, after more than forty years. He is the father of one of my closest friends, one who is more of a brother with an association of close to half a century. The Sens were on their way back home after spending a week-long family vacation in Sikkim. They needed to stay one night in the plains before embarking on the morning flight to Mumbai and the friend insisted that we stayed at his home at Siliguri while he himself was temporarily staying at the other extreme end of the country.

Even though he had aged, Uncle’s mental faculties were as sharp as could be and so was his overall health except for a slight wobble in his walk that he had developed lately. We stayed for no more than fifteen hours in the house, but his disciplined lifestyle of doing his exercise and puja for over an hour, both in the morning and evening, his sleeping and waking up time allowed us talk time for no more than two hours. He was able to recollect almost every event in history, each and every person’s name he would have encountered including names of teachers who had taught his children and had an analytical viewpoint about politics in the country and the world. It was amazing to see him so aware and alive. He still is an avid reader and his range of books is huge starting with Ramcharitmanas, Bhagwad Gita to Agrarian Movement in British India and books on travel. He eats healthy, home-made food and manages all his activities independently.

I was well aware of Uncle’s dabang-bazi in his hey days. He had been a mass student leader during his college days at Patna and many of his contemporaries and juniors later went on to occupy seats in the parliament and bureaucracy. All these people held him in high regard. He could get any work done in the power corridors of Delhi with ease. But, today, he was a changed man. I was expecting to meet a frail old man who would find it difficult to communicate but what I experienced was an eye opener for how to live life in complete peace with your surroundings and make the best of what life has given you. He had no words of remorse or anger towards anyone, just words of gratitude. I felt the warmth of his love and affection and unknowingly he planted a seed in my heart that made me think about life’s true essence.

During the conversation we were having, Uncle uttered the two words… Jivo-Sivo. He then went on to quote, “जो जीव (प्राणी) मात्र से प्रेम करता है, वही वास्तव में ईश्वर की सेवा करता है।" D spoke out the original immortal lines of Swami Vivekananda in Bangla, “জীবে প্রেম করে যেই জন, সেই জন সেবিছে ঈশ্বর,” which when translated in English means, “He who loves living beings (Jiv), he is the one who truly serves god (Shiv).” All the old man was saying that only a compassionate and loving heart is the one who is a true servant and devotee of God. This dictum alone has been the core philosophy of his life.

And how does the man who at some stage in life was a dabang serve people? Simple, he takes care of people without any expectation. Uncle comes from a very humble, rural background. He was the fourth in the family of the six siblings and the most educated of all. He moved out to Siliguri as a government employee while others stayed behind in the village. He took on the responsibility like an eldest son and made sure that the extended family back home was always reasonably provided for. He stood by them in good times and bad.

Uncle initially got his elder brother's daughter and her husband, who had passed their school in 1970, enrolled in the Teachers Training course in Sasaram. The duo went on to become principals of high and middle school respectively. During one of his trips back to his native village, he found that the sons of his younger brothers were going wayward. He immediately brought them over to Siliguri and then admitted the two boys in the same prestigious boarding school at Kurseong as his own son. Some years later, two daughters of his younger brother were enrolled in a boarding school for girls at Kurseong. These girls were brought up just like his own daughters and, later, he worked tirelessly, as a father would, to find the right grooms from families where the two would be well taken care of after leaving home. And he also made sure that he chose homes where they did not demand dowry. When these sisters’ brother, who was staying in the village, lost his wife, shortly after the birth of his daughter, the little one was also brought to Siliguri, educated and groomed well. He even went beyond the family of his brothers and sister and even bore for the education expenses of another bright but needy student during his tenure at the Dhanbad School of Mines. The list seems endless and his care for these children was done purely out of love. The house on 2^nd Mile Sevoke Road behind Himalayan Flour mills became like a gurukul where under the shade of the vidyavriksh (tree of knowledge) many a flower bloomed.

Today, Uncle is taking care of the education of another girl who happens to be the grand-daughter of his late sister. She came in as a school girl and is currently studying in a college in Patna. The girl makes sure to call up Uncle everyday just like a devoted grand-daughter. She is, however, mortally afraid of the son, my friend, for he keeps the teenager in check for splurging on clothes and other luxuries which Uncle pays for and overlooks with the blind love of a grandparent.

Uncle says that now that he is quite old, the girl at Patna will be possibly the last one he will be able to take care of. He misses his wife dearly whom he lost some years ago. He said that she was the real source of his strength and was the glue that held the extended family together over the years. She loved all the children like her own and never ever scolded or raised her voice on any one of them. Her life was an amazing repository of folk songs and idioms who, in another time and clime, might have been another ‘Teejan Bai’.

Living alone can be difficult for old people but not for Uncle. He now has a sweet, young house-help who calls him Dadaji and takes care of his cooking and cleaning of the house. Uncle keeps her just as he would do with his own child… she eats with him, sits with him while he watches the television and accompanies him everywhere. His love and affection for the girl are to be seen and admired and the girl, too, reciprocates in the same manner and dotes on her ‘dadaji’. My friend has taught her driving. She proudly showed us her driving licence. He says that, in later life, it would hold her in good stead and the girl should be able to do work beyond that of a house help and earn her livelihood independently. Like father, like son… the same philosophy of life.

While Uncle was speaking, I looked at him closely. He appeared to be the calmest looking man with a round face, soothing eyes and a voice that was gentle. He reminded me of the monks that we had just seen at Sikkim’s famous monasteries at Rumtek and Pemayangste. These monks in reddish brown kasaya (Buddhist robe) had renounced worldly life to live in seclusion in the service of their God. The monasteries were so peaceful and the chants of Om Mani Padme Hum in the air there gave me a sense of calmness and inner peace.

My Dabang Uncle, on the other hand, has lived in this world with all its hardships and challenges yet he has devoted all his life in the service of people beyond his own family. In a world where we define our families as me, my wife and my children, he went much beyond. In this shrinking, selfish and self-centred world, this monk wearing clothes like you and me, taught me in a short time and in the simplest of languages, the true essence of life… Jivo-Sivo. My Dabang Uncle lived his life fearlessly in pursuit of this one life principle. I also came to realise that we do not need to seek the gods in temples and monks in monasteries. They live amongst us. ‘Seek, and ye shall find’.

SS