The Innocence Of Cycling

If you are considering taking up the extremely healthy activity of cycling, please carry on reading. For posterity’s sake, I shall start with reminiscing about cycling during my childhood. In the next article, I shall advise you on how to make correct technical choices in order to enjoy safe cycling.

Pre-historic times

My pre-kindergarten memories remain those of a colourful tricycle, and then a four-wheeled metal car that moved when I pushed two pedals under my feet. Both were made out of metal, as was the manufacturing norm in those days.

My parents dutifully purchased both of these items from Nila Gumbad—the bicycle market  outside Lahore’s Anarkali Bazar. 

I do not recall if my younger sister ever fought to pedal any of these beauties. I was happy to see her comb her dolls’ hairs, and she felt elated watching me crash the baby-car into various pieces of furniture, thus expending excess boy-energy.

I was born with a bronze spoon in my mouth, meaning, the parents exercised firm control over money. This quickly taught me to save in order to buy the objects of fetish and desire. My bank was always a clay money-box (ghalla) that I purchased from a potter (kumhaar) in Mozang bazar. Nobody I knew called them ‘piggy-banks’.

Although the age of unbreakable plastic was upon us, it was far more exhilarating to break open a clay money-box. Overcome by great ideas of self-financing certain plans, I spent many an afternoon counting coins if not counting crows. Somehow, the counting always stopped short of the desired target of a hundred rupees—the equivalent of ten thousand rupees today.

Seeing the shortfall, mother handed over the metallic treasure to father who opened his home-office cupboard, and magically turned the change into a crisp hundred-rupee ‘Qaid-e-Azam’ (slang for a hundred-rupee note because it sported the face of Pakistan’s founding father, Mr. Jinnah).

The boyish curiosity led me to discover that father trusted a dead Irish playwright with his stash of cash; the money was kept under lock and key, hidden behind ‘The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde’. Father was, therefore, not a magician but a maestro who made honest hard work look like child’s play.

Life, 1960s style

Pakistan’s bicycle manufacturing industry was at its peak back then, and produced BECO, Sohrab, Rustam and Eagle brands. Bicycles far outnumbered motorcycles in Lahore. People were healthier because they covered on foot considerable distances each day. That meant greater wear and tear on shoes and hence more cobblers around street corners.

At my school’s bicycle stand behind the canteen, it was hard to ignore hundreds of bicycles that both the students and the teachers used. My father too walked briskly between home and the High Court. As children we gladly used our legs, tongas or rickshaws for commuting; never throwing tantrums for a family car.

The decision to buy my first bicycle was sudden. It took the proceeds of two clay money-boxes to finance the purchase. The excitement was sky high; I was only eleven years old at the time.

At a shop in Nila Gumbad, my eyes ignored the dull black and the shocking red colours; instead I chose an olive-green 18-inch Sohrab. It cost Rs 250 which was enough money to take care of a year’s school-recess snacks, namely, two samosas and a bottle of Coca Cola worth one rupee.

Since so many decades, this samosa-Coke yardstick has helped me determine money’s value and inflation. Another very useful yardstick is the price of petrol in 1972, which was Rs 4.5 per gallon, or Rs 1 per litre. Fifty years later we are paying a hundred times that price. Now work out the inflation per annum.

First love

Taking my eyes off the new bike was impossible; she came fully clothed in protective corrugated paper covering. I brought the beauty into the bedroom and stood her on the rear-wheel stand. Intoxicated by the smell of rubber and painted metal, I let her stay right beside the bed to help me sleep better.

The next day, the neighbourhood boys dropped by to ogle at my shining Sohrab.

I normally cycled within the locality’s confines but when parents were oblivious, ventured to the nearby Regal Chowk to either snack on a plate of Aslam’s dahi-bhallay or Khan’s samosas and aloo ki tikki. The latter were fried in fragrant mustard oil which lent them great taste. We were several decades away from consuming obesity-inducing junk cooking oils such as palm, sunflower or Canola.

Cycling was a male-dominated activity, and only in posher localities did young girls pedal but with much less confidence and always within certain geographical limits.

Second love

The bike was a metal slave that served me well. Each year I raised the seat-post by an inch, and when it reached the limit after three years, the frame felt quite small. I again chose an olive-green beauty, a taller 22-inch Sohrab , whose twin top-tubes lent greater strength to the frame.

By this time, we had our first car: a 1300 c.c. model 1971 Ford Escort. It cost Rs 18,500. It was bluish-green in colour, and whenever the body got scratched or dented, the paint-shop technician at Ali Automobiles on The Mall found it quite difficult to recreate the precise hue.To give you an idea of how much value a Pakistani rupee carried, my paternal aunt (phopho) purchased a made-in-Japan Toyota Corona in 1968 for Rs 12,000. Today, a bicycle would cost more.

In the mid-1970s, I secured a scholarship to study at Government College (Lahore). The faithful Sohrab, having served the purpose, suddenly felt odd. Whereas previously I could walk to the school, traversing greater distance to a place of higher learning required a quicker means of transportation. Bus travel was troublesome, the family car was mostly under father’s use, and there was peer pressure to buy a motorcycle.

The bike mistry

Two bicycle mechanics worked nearby; their real names escape my memory. Only one lingered on for many years; he was simply known as mistry jee. Come rain or shine, he earned his living under the shade of a peepal tree located next to the gate of our lane 3 on Temple Road.

For more details, read these articles:

Puppu Darling Of 3 Temple Road (Part-1)

Puppu Darling Of 3 Temple Road (Part-2))

Attired in a loin-cloth (dhoti), he wiped off facial sweat with the lower portion of his oil-stained shirt (qameez). To clearly indicate what business he was into, he displayed a worn bicycle tyre high on the peepal tree-trunk. With tools scattered on the ground and fingernails permanently filled with the dirt of eons of hard labour, he consumed his afternoon meals with those very hands.

His open-air workshop remained low-tech but extremely useful to all the cyclists. Mistry jee fixed whatever needed fixing on my bike sometimes using bare hands much like a hammer. Whenever someone’s bike ball bearings were found worn out and required replacement, he announced in Punjabi: Aeday kuttay fail ho gaye nay (literally, the dogs have failed). What he meant was the bearings had failed. Nobody questioned why the slang for ball bearings was dogs.

Employing child labour never was a problem in Pakistan. How else could the poor eat? Mistry jee had an amazing young assistant (‘chota’) who pumped air into peoples’ tyres for free. The child being very short for the large-sized floor-pump, pulled up the handle and then jumped into the air to bring the stomach’s weight down on it. The more air he filled the better he could fill his poor stomach.

Right after finishing college, I was fortunate enough to secure a very respectable and well-paying job that required I move out from Lahore (the 'cultural centre of Pakistan’) to characterless Islamabad (the Federal capital).

Whenever I visited my parents, old mistry jee greeted me at the lane’s entrance with a smile that was fast becoming toothless. He was always glad to hear I was flying high in life. Towards the end of his hard life, mistry jee’s eyesight became cataract-ridden. Forever etched in memory shall remain his dark glasses, looking at things from a very close range, and working even harder as if time was running out.

Now I fix my own bicycles at home. Sometimes when I face a problem, I imagine old mistry jee standing right beside. He always lends free invisible guidance.

The scene

As boys we went all over Lahore without ever feeling deprived or unhappy. I did not ride to school because it was at stone-throw distance. The bike only came in handy when I visited friends at the Upper Mall Road or the G.O.R. Sneaking out on a family car was considered punishable defiance by all fathers but a show of great courage by peers.

The citizens back then had plenty of regard and fear for the traffic police; the sergeants rode powerful Harley Davidson motorcycles. The tonga-walas displayed side lights on their horse-carriages and cyclists too used headlights while riding at night.

To emerge as a law-abiding citizen, initially I invested in a Chinese battery-operated headlight. The cheapest cells came from a brand called Chanda—the costlier one being 5-Stars.

Watch the Chanda TV commercial HERE.

I added to the handlebar an imported chromed Japanese bell whose lovely ring still echoes in my mind. Then came a set of better head and tail lights. These were dynamo-operated. The faster I rode, the brighter the lights became. To see how it all worked, click HERE.

Cycling games

One could not be sad while riding a bicycle. Those who could not afford to own bicycles or needed them for only short periods, came to mistry jee for rentals at eight annas (half a rupee or fifty paisas) per hour. Poorer children, whenever they had spare change, always rented adult-size bicycles. The very young who could not ride properly seated, did the qainchi. I cannot explain the novel technique in words even if I tried; it is best to watch THIS VIDEO.

Then there were some who raced worn-out tyres and dreamed of owning bikes. Watch THIS VIDEO to see how that was done.

To prove useful about the house, I occasionally fetched grocery items from the nearby Saffanwala Chowk or bread from Beadon Road. The plain (sada) bread cost eight annas and the ‘milky’ one only ten annas.

Although riding aimlessly remained the main activity within the narrow confines of our lane, there was one game which we boys regularly played: ‘slip’. This is how it went.

Imagine yourself merrily pedalling away when suddenly another cyclist blocks the path. His manoeuvre seems to be working to your disadvantage because there is no place to escape. Both the obstructer and you slow down to almost a standstill. You balance the bikes while seated but force one another to put at least one foot on the ground. If you can pedal to escape or outdo the opponent in a standstill, you win.

The ‘slip’ taught the boys how to deal with surprise attacks, and achieve greater balance later in life.

A close call

One Sunday morning I dared to pedal to aunty Maria’s place in far-away Cantonment (chaoni). Although luxurious bungalows now stand on this road, in those days there stood an army Mess and a row of barrack-like living quarters for junior officers. Aunty Maria, my mother’s youngest sister, was married to Lieutenant Sajjad Hussain of the Army’s Ordinance Corps.

Double-decker buses plied The Mall in those days. The ones marked ‘1 - R.A Bazar’ ran between the Lower Mall and the Royal Artillery bazar. Courting adventure, I cycled towards Saddar bazar. While making a careless U-turn I was hit by a slowly moving double-decker. I was airborne for a few seconds; such was the deadly push from the bus’s front bumper. The angry driver flung a Punjabi insult at me that I failed to comprehend.

I pedalled back so fast to aunty Maria’s place onlookers thought I had stolen the bike. Out of breath, I narrated the entire episode, with special emphasis placed on, “But what did the driver mean when he said——?”

She did not explain but hugged me hard with a loud laughter. ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) had not yet been invented.

The situation today

For the next few decades, I kept improving my road sense in the hope that my fellow countrymen too would emerge as the most disciplined race on the face of the earth. How much ‘unity, faith and discipline’ we possess after seventy-three years of so-called independence is evident from our chaotic vehicular traffic.

These days I cycle for fitness and in the early mornings. I do encounter motorcyclists who openly violate the rules, recklessly ride on the wrong sides of the roads, sometimes head straight at me, and habitually turn abruptly without indicating. I think we are wasting huge sums of money on marking driving lanes on the roads. It will be better not to have roads but rather large patches of paved surfaces to do as we please.

Despair not; despite all the odds, cycling is great fun if you know your limitations, care for obvious health benefits, and wish for the happiness of childhood days to return.

Do listen to this classic pop song by Queen from 1978: Bicycle Race

Stay tuned for the next article: A Beginner’s Guide To Cycling.

- - to be concluded - -

Also read my other articles on cycling:

1. Refurbishing An Old Bicycle
2. A Beginner's Guide To Cycling

© Tahir Gul Hasan, 2021

Puppu Darling Of 3 Temple Road (Part 2)

What you read in part-1 of this story was only half of what Puppu did. He did much more, as we shall soon see. Before proceeding further, some amazing facts require mentioning about Temple Road where our house has stood since the 1930s.

An historic road

Temple Road was named thus to honour a Sikh Gurdwara built in the memory of the sixth Guru, Har Gobind (1595-1644), whose reign, known as the ‘Gurdwara Chhati Badshahi’ (the sixth reign), lasted for thirty-seven years.

When Emperor Jahangir (1569-1627) arrested Guru Har Gobind’s father, Guru Arjan, Mian Mir—the Sufi friend of the Guru—lobbied for a royal pardon, whereas ultra-orthodox Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi cheered at the execution of ‘infidel Arjan’. In the years to come, the son would fight four wars against the ‘oppressive tyrannical foreign rule of the Mughals’.

Until recently, the above facts remained unknown to me, and when I complained to my mother for keeping mum, she replied in an exceedingly relaxed tone, “Haw-hai. You never asked me!”

There is no denying, we Pakistanis take great pride in memorising exaggerated romanticised tales about invading foreigner Muslim Generals yet suffer from collective amnesia at the mention of indigenous heroes of resistance who belonged to other faiths.

This is Radio Pakistan

Mr Chaudhry Bashir Ahmed and family lived two flats away from us in number four. The gent worked for Radio Pakistan, popularly known as raydway station. I feared one day Mr Bashir would place a skinny hand over my shoulder and soberly announce: This is Radio Pakistan. The sad news read by Bashir Ahmed.

Mr Bashir had just stepped out for some fresh air that day when Puppu took to imitating Radio Pakistan’s famous newscaster, Shakeel Ahmed, whose legendary news bulletin, broadcast during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, went thus:

“Abhi abhi khabar aee hay keh Pak Fizaya kay bambaar tayyaron nay Halwara kay hawai-adday par hamla kar kay dushman kay bohat say jahaaz tabah kar diaye…”

(The news just received: Pakistan Air Force’s bomber aircraft attacked Halwara airfield and destroyed many airplanes of the enemy…”)

To hear what Shakeel Ahmed sounded like, click HERE.

I cannot say with certainty if it was Puppu's loud public singing or this particular prank which made Mr. Bashir ignore his natural vocal talent by never arranging for an audition at Radio Pakistan.

Mr Bashir’s three sons never associated with the ‘riff raff’—in plain words: all the boys of our lane 3. One of his sons, Farrukh Bashir, was known as Chutki (finger snap). He received seven-years of sitar lessons from Ustad Sharif Khan Poonchwaley and eventually became a producer at Pakistan Television Corporation.

Several decades later on 11 March 2008, terrorists launched a massive suicide attack on the Federal Investigation Agency’s office located on Temple Road. Mr. Bashir was at home when the deadly shock-wave caused a door-frame to fall over him; within weeks the head injury brought his life’s bulletin to a sad end.

Where art thou, Ejaz?

There lived a few docile boys on lane 3 but one named Ejaz took the proverbial cake. His drill-sergeant daddy suspected the precious boy habitually escaped to the jungle outside, and to check on the whereabouts, he frequently yelled, “Ejaaaaz!”

No matter what the location, the dutiful son immediately responded with an equally loud and reassuring, “Aaya jeeee!” (coming).

Puppu soon began to take special delight in copying the two hollers. Whenever Ejaz walked by, Puppu called, “Ejaz!”, and the omnipresent boy-chorus of lane 3 responded, “Aaya jee!”.

Giggles naturally followed but Ejaz never reacted to what was life’s observable fact.

Many years later I found Ejaz in Jeddah working as a ground staff member for the Saudi Arabian Airlines. Whenever we met, he tried to convince me with a vice-like handshake that yesterday’s pussycat was a macho-man.

Ramzani drummers and postmen

Although Muslims generally relied on mechanical alarm clocks to wake up early for fasting during the month of fasting (Ramadan), drum-beaters made the scene more musical for the faithful.

Puppu could not outdo the drummers because they arrived at a time when both man and beast enjoyed deep sleep. We never found out if Puppu got up to please The Almighty with fasting or preferred chasing after pretty film heroines in dreamland.

Each drummer marked an area in whose streets he played a large drum (dhol), and repeatedly paused to give loud pious calls: “Roza-daaro, utho, roza rakho” (O, those who will fast, wake up for fasting).

Fasting entitled believers to religiously exceed their bellies' natural capacity by speedily consuming oily parathas dipped in gravy dishes. The activity abruptly ended when a nearby mosque's mullah announced from a loudspeaker: “Khaana peena band kar dein. Namaz ka waqt ho gaya haaaay!” (Stop eating and drinking. It’s time now for prayers).

Soon afterwards, a deafening call for congregational prayers woke up the very young from deep slumber. My mother thought the sound level was ‘enough to wake up the dead in the nearby Miani Sahib graveyard’.

Shell-shocked by the call, children woke up to enquire from sehri-fatigued mothers, “Bhaoo aya?” (Has a djinn arrived?).

They were told, “Nahin! Allah Mian kehtay hein so jao!” (No! God says, go to sleep).

The festive Eid day arrived at the end of Ramadan to thank God for liberating starved stomachs. After the morning Eid prayers, the first to appear in the neighbourhood would be the drummers. Looking fresh and attired in brand new clothes, they collected cash gifts (Eidy) from those whom they had dutifully roused for thirty consecutive early mornings.

A few days before Eid, the postmen astutely indulged in postal blackmail by not delivering letters. On Eid day they arrived wearing patent khaki uniforms and upon receiving cash Eidy, respectfully handed over a letter or an Eid-card as if it had dropped from heaven that very moment.

 
The transgender dancers

Puppu was an advanced amateur singer who laughed off all competition except the professional dancing transvestites known as khusraas, heejraas, and Khawaja-saras. They magically appeared at people’s doorsteps in small groups to dance and sing on festive occasions, such as, the birth of a child—especially that of a son.

Boys who dared to insult faced vile curses which oozed from a khusra's mouth. Hearing swear words sometimes sounded better than music. The lads eventually discovered that the ‘Ph.D,’ label assigned to them by the oppressed was not the abbreviated form of 'doctors of philosophy' but rather pakkay haraam day (Punjabi for: positively born out of wedlock).

To provide musical accompaniment, the two-piece band of the eunuch khusraas used a battered harmonium and a punch-packed dholak. They clapped more boldly than qawwali-singers, danced more wildly than mad dervishes, stomped the feet harder than soldiers to activate the musical brass anklets (ghungroo), and sang popular songs at a volume which silenced the ‘hello, testing, 1-2-3-4’ of the nearby Hall Road’s loudspeaker vendors.

Living in a ‘trans’ world

At 6 p.m., a giant called black-and-white television woke up to hypnotise the colourful population. Before regular transmission commenced, viewers were free to stare at the static insignia of the station to find meanings where there were none, and listen to a short non-raga melody which droned in the background for several minutes.

Much like a book read from cover to cover, viewers stared at the television from 6 p.m. until the ‘brain programming’ ended at 10 p.m. when the Pakistani flag fluttered on the screen to the tune of the national anthem. Pondering over its incomprehensible Persian lyrics worked better than a sleeping pill.

Unbelievable as it may seem now, there was no television on Mondays but we had live transgender-vision that featured khusras in flashy makeup.

During short performances the onlookers showered the dancers with bank notes which they efficiently stuffed inside pairs of pointed chest-mounted money-bags.

Compared with adult eyesight, children always see things differently. Precocious boys noticed that the members of the third gender frequently adjusted something under their dupattas; that something was liberally-padded fake femininity inside pointed brassieres that were fashionable during the 1960s. Since today’s fashionistas are—ooh la-la—so concerned about global-warming, terrorism, and pandemics, this pointed fashion stands no chance of returning.

Those were my wonder years. A naughty aunty described a brassiere thus: “Beta, these pointed fabric bowls are sown together; one is for salan (gravy) and the other for roti (bread).

Such sensitive information increased my appetite and put me off regular dinner plates until the truth behind the undergarment lay itself utterly bare.

The bored housewives of our lane always carved out time for khusra-shows. My mother still fondly recalls, “Oh, how joyously the khusraas danced at your birth! Even several years after that event, the same dancers continued to appear at our doorstep to bless you!”

Today I feel positively blessed by not only both the sexes but also the one that lies in between, and which appears to be benefiting from global mainstreaming efforts.

Mrs Davey takes a direct hit

In 1969, the movie, ‘Nai Laila, Naya Majnoon’, was showing at the Plaza cinema hall across the Charing Cross police station on Queen’s Road. The heroine was Nasima Khan from Dhaka—then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. The comic hero was Syed Kamal—perceived as ‘Pakistan’s 'Raj Kapoor’.

For this film, a Pakistani composer efficiently copied Muhammad Rafi’s song ‘O Hasina Zulfon Wali Jane-e-Jahan’ (Teesri Manzil, 1966) and turned it into a duet: ‘O Meri Mehbooba’. Puppu meticulously copied the parts of Ahmed Rushdi and Mala Begum, and sang for our listening pleasure.

One beautiful Sunday morning Puppu sneaked out on uncle Ajji’s 1961 model Vespa 150 (VBA). This Italian 150 cc scooter was immensely popular in those days because its front design guarded the legs, a flat area between the rider and the handlebar accommodated a child in standing position, a small compartment stored personal items, and a spare tyre on some models graced the rear of the passenger seat.

I was then in class-IV. On a fateful day my teacher, Mrs Davey, affectionately known as ‘moti mem’ (fat lady), was seen returning after having attended the Sunday service at the grand church of St. Anthony's High School on Lawrence Road.

From a distance, I heard Puppu singing ‘Tu Hay Laila Nai, Main Hoon Majnoon Naya’, a hit from ‘Nai Laila, Naya Majnoon’. As he passed by, the head moving from side to side, he changed the vocal radio station to the duet ‘O Meri Mehbooba’.

The translation of the male singer’s part:

O my beloved!
Tell me, what has happened?
From garden to garden, like a butterfly
Where do you fly off to?

The translation of the female singer’s part:

What shall I tell you has happened?
My heart is lost
Is it you?
Who has stolen my heart?

It was too late to warn Puppu. Oblivious of pedestrian traffic, he crashed into Mrs Davey’s hindquarters. The lady, built like a Sherman tank, did not fall but Puppu and the scooter did.

The singing suddenly stopped. The Vespa’s accelerator revved up as Puppu tried to maintain a grip over it. The engine produced a wheeeeeooonn sound and fainted after several mechanical hiccups. The rider lay flat on the back in the dust of the unpaved road of our locality (mohalla), and the dark sunglasses rested diagonally across over a face that had the potential to launch a few civil Vespas if not a thousand non-existent ships of Pakistan Navy.

Mrs Davey understood all the Urdu that had until then oozed out of Puppu’s very Punjabi mouth. She was nobody’s imaginary beloved (mehbooba) but there was reason to believe she imagined herself a butterfly (titli).

Red in the face and foaming liberally at the mouth, she shouted, “You loafer chokra-loge, don’t you bloomin’ see where the hell you’re goin’?”

Chokra is colloquial for boy, and loge for folks. Such words coming out of an Anglo-Indian mouth took on a derogatory meaning. Nobody called a decent boy from a good family chokra.

Puppu apologised profusely. The 45-rpm record (tawa) of his tongue got stuck, “Auntie! Aa…aa…auntie…aa…aa…auntieeee!”

“Shut up! Idiot!” she thundered like the heroine in the song that Puppu was singing a while ago.

With the sunglasses now hanging from one ear, Puppu got up to dust his clothes and then, perhaps out of sheer innocence, did the same to Mrs Davey’s rear end.

“Bugger off, you rascal! Don’t you bloody do that!” she screamed.

Clayton, Mrs Davey’s eldest and wildest son, having heard the clamour rushed to rescue mummy in distress; he sounded like another stuck record, “Mummy…mum…mum…mummeeee!”

The aunteeee-mumeeee duel ended in a quick draw after Clayton took pity on Puppu’s apologetic face that was by then redder than a ripe tomato.

It was rumoured Mrs Davey complained to Puppu’s father and uncle Ajji. In the weeks that followed, our singing sensation suffered a ban imposed on aimless Vespa rides, and demotion to the rank of foot soldier (paidal march).

A hero without a heroine

Puppu was a hopeless romantic at heart, in love with God knows who. None claimed to have seen him broadcast ballads for a beloved perched over a terrace. He teased none of the neighbourhood ‘sisters’, stayed away from every precocious maid-servant (nokarani), and never stooped to having a sweeperess (chuhri, jama-daarni, bhangan) cure his aching back.

Puppu sang because he was a nightingale, a rare rose without thorns. These qualities endeared him to the members of the fairer gender who understood he was not a threat to modesty or chastity.

Sometimes when my jovial mother saw the crooner pass by the window with a hit song on his lips, she enquired, “Puppu darling, where is your puppy?”

Interestingly, there lived two sisters in the house next doors, Puppy and Nanni. They were just beginning to take classical dance lessons. Years later they joined Pakistan International Airlines as airhostesses.

On a serious note, my disciplinarian father saw Puppu as a leader of all loafers ('lofaron ka sardaar')—a title gladly bestowed upon the undesirables those population he suspected was rising rapidly.

Fade to black

Several decades later I met with Puppu’s real puppy. His wife and children were at the funeral of Mirza sahib’s son, Shah Jahan, who lost the battle of life to cancer.

Old neighbours had by then mostly moved to foreign lands to take oaths of allegiance to faithfully serve other governments. Shah Jahan’s younger brother, naughty Raja, was a British national.

Puppu’s family lived in some corner of Lahore where our singing sensation met a quiet end. It remains a deep regret that I was unable to pay my last respects to a man who filled with so much music the hearts of the entire population of Temple Road’s lane 3.

The gloomy atmosphere at Shahjahan’s funeral did not prevent old neighbours from talking about bygone times and characters. Puppu’s children were clueless about what their deceased father meant to the old neighbours, and thought I was joking when I narrated several funny episodes from his life. It was this meeting which prompted me to write about Puppu for posterity.

Viva Puppu!

By today’s elitist standards, my childhood might seem strange and deprived but it was culturally super-rich. Life today in the DHAs and the Bahria Towns of Pakistan is quite dull. The moneyed children of generation-X live in sanitised ‘gated communities’ and like farm-chickens, seldom experience rough-and-tough desi life.

Today's affluent ladies prefer going shopping with armed guards in humungous vehicles. The teenaged sons of rich daddies drive expensive sports cars or ride noisy super-bikes that cost millions of rupees each. None wait or save to buy anything because everything is available on-line or on credit.

Courtesy of Puppu and other daredevils, I experienced the swinging 1960s under liberal laboratory conditions which produced street-smart children with naughty genes. Within the walled city of Lahore, you will still find such youngsters.

Religious texts indicate that God Almighty possesses hosts of angels who sing His non-stop praises. Puppu is resting right now but I am sure he will one day be gainfully employed in heaven to make only holy joyful noise.

An urban dictionary defines puppu as someone who is ‘typically mean, smells bad and looks funny’. The Puppu I knew was nothing of the kind. If you looked at different human races living in so many lands, each will have its own version of a darling Puppu who might be living just around the corner.

- - concluded - -

© Tahir Gul Hasan, 2020

To enjoy part-1 of this story, click HERE.

Puppu Darling Of 3 Temple Road (Part 1)

Once upon a legendary lane of Temple Road, there lived a musically gifted young boy named Puppu. As the resident-singer of the amazing area of Lahore where this writer was born and raised, Puppu’s sole joy in life was being full of it.

Singing in the lane

Growing up without the luxury of air-conditioners, we Lahore-conditioned children knew how to deal with sizzling summers when the mercury kissed forty-five degrees Celsius. The ventilators of the sixteen-foot high ceilings of my missionary St. Anthony’s High School and all public offices kept the temperature bearable inside.

Once when I complained during an electricity breakdown, my father encouraged me with a unique revelation:

“Hell is hotter but those who do well at studies will go straight to heaven.”

To me, having heavenly friends in a hellish missionary school was a slice of heaven.

Heated evenings brought restless Puppu out of the hole. With the shirt’s three top buttons open for ventilation and a proud display of a chest that was beginning to show traces of manly hairiness, he paced up and down the lane like an unfortunate lion caged at the Lahore Zoo (Chirya Ghar, 1872). During incessant rains, our singing prince rolled up to the knees the leg openings of the trousers and turned into a croaking monsoon frog (tarrata hua barsati maindak).

If one asked Puppu a question, he preferred replying with a song but was equipped to outdo any woman associated with the business of chatting. The genius was four years older to me; the difference felt monumental. I do not recall ever seeing his parents. He did have an uncle called Ajji, and a younger brother named Puttu; the latter walked with clenched fists and thumbs sticking out as if ready to hitch a double ride.

Alumni of taat-school?

I suspected Puppu played hooky thereby avoiding sticking his nose in a book. He never carried a schoolbag, never spoke of stressful studies, and probably attended the school of hard knocks were homework and classwork were unknown phenomena.

Was he old-school, no-school or a student of an unknown school of thought? From the razor-sharp mind of my father oozed another quotable gem:

“If Puppu were to aim for higher education, he would go to cow college to become a danngar daktar!” (veterinary doctor).

Interestingly, the College of Animal Husbandry (established 1882) was nearby and when I asked my mother about it, she lay bare the truth behind my father’s quote:

“Any man who studies at that Ghora Haspitaal will become an animalistic husband”.

In naturally-selected parts of our family, satire and humour evolved much differently than an ape that turned into Charles Darwin.

Snack-time all the time

Shopping for meat and vegetables at the nearby Safanwala Chowk was Puppu’s daily chore. With a plastic basket (tokri) swinging in the air and the duet, ‘Ae Baharo Gawah Rehna’ (Saiqa, 1968), on his lips, our home-spun Elvis Presley could get a vendor to sometimes hand out gratis smaller portions of the commodities. The money thus saved enabled him to snack on HICO choc-bar—when he felt Divinely privileged like the English—or lick creamy local ice-cream (malai-wali kulfi)—when he thought himself a local (desi).

He had other seasonal choices as well: water chestnuts (singharay), roasted corn (makai kay danay), sweet potatoes (shakarqandi), or sugar-cane cubes (ganderian). The juiceless remains of the last-mentioned item he ejected from his mouth at regular intervals like a lion urine-marking his territory in the wild, except that he did it while singing the lyrics that sounded mmm…mmm… slurrrppp… aannn…oonnn... slurrrppp…

In November of 1964, Lahore became the first Pakistani city where black and white television arrived with a big bang. The preferred modes of entertainment suddenly rearranged themselves in this order: television, radio and Puppu.

The youth was a walking radio station that required no electricity to broadcast, presented more variety than Radio Ceylon’s Binaca Geet-Mala, and outshone the dull Urdu Service of All India Radio. As if amused by the punctuality of the BBC, Puppu came on the air without ever synchronising his body clock with the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

Matters of faith

In an older story, The Things I Did For Mrs Davey, I described what our residential area looked like but providing additional details will be of immense historical value to mankind.

We were blessed with a mosque at the end of our lane. It was financially supported by Mr Zameer, a large gentleman who drove a bluish grey Mercedes Benz, owned the famous Syed Bhais Private Limited Company that manufactured electricity meters for WAPDA, and later became the proprietor of a cinema-hall (Sanam) located at the junction of Queen’s Road and Ferozepur Road. As his neighbours, we felt honoured to increase his bank-balance by always paying to watch films.

Puppu normally wore shirt and trousers but come Friday and his holiness (hazrat) donned starched white shalwar-qameez and a cotton cap to look seriously religious.

The mosque’s prayer crier (muezzin) was a very old toothless gent called Baba Natthay Khan. After each prayer, the Barelvi Baba led the faithful to sing loud and lengthy praises of the Prophet.

During winter, he wore a full-face woollen cap (kann-toap) and thick socks. To earn extra money, he knitted woollen accessories for others.

Whenever Puppu saw Baba Nathay Khan, he teased with ‘Baray Miyan Diwanay Aisay Na Bano’ (Shagird, 1967) or sang the provocative ‘Mujhay Dunya Walo Sharabi Na Samjho’ (Leader, 1964). The irritated old man reacted by labelling him the devil (Shaitan).

Not many congregated five times daily to pray but the mosque—thank God for Friday—attained a greater 'house full’ status than the local cinema-halls. Less religiosity of those days kept the mullah-genie firmly inside the Rooh Afza bottle, and newspaper advertisements of whisky did not endanger any faith in any way.

Opposite the mosque lived a few Christians families; none were converted by any proselytiser from Raiwind. Interestingly, two attractive young European missionaries, who bicycled all over Lahore to sell their version of salvation, did make unsuccessful attempts to convert my mother into a Jehovah’s Witness. Their illustrated story-book is still in my possession and shows harmless doves, Mr and Mrs Adam, having an apple-pie party with the wise serpent playing the host.

Mr Jinnah’s double

Puppu’s loud singing was considered ‘disturbing’ by a quiet old neighbour, Mr Ashraf Falahi, who was a colleague of my father.

The old bachelor was a walking talking copy of Mr Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Occasionally he told the boys just one thing using just one finger out of twenty:

“Be thankful to God for giving you Pakistan. You don’t realise how bloody the partition of India really was.”

Whenever Puppu saw Mr Falahi, he switched to singing ‘Aay Qaid-e-Azam Tera Ehsaan Hay Ehsaan’. This always made Mr Falahi smile and temporarily enter the boy’s name in his mental good book. No sooner did Mr Falahi vanish out of sight, Puppu reverted to airing what my father labelled ‘loafer-type of songs’.

Merry go round the ‘two-ell’

Behind the mosque stood a tube-well—pronounced ‘two-ell’ by the poorer children. It was enclosed within a brick-structure and supplied water to the entire community. Whenever the two-ell malfunctioned, an elderly plumber called Mistry Jee from lane 5 and his sons, Mushtaq or Khushnood, were sent for repairs down the dark spiderweb-laced steps.

Right between the mosque and the two-ell existed not the land of the fairies but rather the water-bearers (maashkees, bahishtees) and the laundrymen (dhobees). The first group washed everyone’s dirty laundry in its backyard (dhobi-ghat) while the second lot supplied water in sheepskins during severe water crises.

An old toothless fairy (dhoban) did our laundry at the per-hundred rate (sainkara). Nothing could beat on Eid day the feel of her hand-pressed China silk (Boski) shirt worn over a fully starched (kalf, maya) cotton shalwar (latthay ki shalwar).

At the lane’s dead end, less affluent neighbours occupied smaller houses which, until a few decades ago, housed the servants of Khan Bahadur’s family (Mr Zameer’s father). In one such humble dwelling lived the boy whose name graces the title of this piece.

As for Mr Zameer’s children, they studied at the elitist Aitchison College on The Mall Road and never mixed with us because we misspelt it ‘H…E…sun’. The rest of us mixed freely amongst ourselves to attain the heights of delightful street-smartness.

Winter ogle Olympics

Winter evenings were always great fun. Staying inside meant dealing with fatherly rebukes but stepping outside involved playing hide and seek as all-weather children.

Some boys preferred staying indoors to consume pine nuts (chilgoza) with the ladies at home but the bolder ones stepped out with pockets loaded with peanuts (moong phali) that helped them go almost totally nuts.

To remain warm-hearted, the older boys indulged in an activity that was much hated by super-strict fathers: congregating at the locality’s gateless entrance under a Ficus Religiosa (Pipal tree) for an irreligious activity: chatting while watching passer-by girls.

The oglers were experts at casting sideways glances who possessed eyes that auto-focussed and panned to follow chosen subjects much like a movie-camera, wore sneaky smiles, employed better-than-Wi-Fi mental communications, and charged their loving hearts faster than modern cell-phones.

The boys had an endless variety of terms of endearment for the watched: chooza (a young chic), dana (grain), tota (a piece), afat (trouble), cheez (a thing), maal (merchandise), mashooq (beloved), popat (pretty doll), chikni (smooth), shay (thing), dame, etcetera.

Puppu fan club

Puppu was gifted with a loud voice that seemed suitable for a military parade ground but it was the melodiousness that saved him from becoming a cadet. While singing duets, he expertly imitated female singers’ parts, and for tunes that required yodelling, he did a better job better than the Swiss.

Sometimes he thought of himself as Rajendra Kumar sans Babita while singing ‘Aa Meri Rani Lay Ja Chhalla Nishani’(Anjaana, 1969).

When he sang ‘Aasman Say Aya Farishta’ (An Evening in Paris, 1967), he thought he was Shammi Kapoor ogling at a bikini-clad Sharmila Tagore.

Puppu’s greatest feat was singing the duet ‘Chand Zard Zard Hay’ (Jaali Note, 1960) that featured some amazing whistling in it; he did all three parts to perfection.

Nobody ever physically checked Puppu if he had an off switch—today they have a name for it: OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). We wondered how the family dealt with him at home because he strolled at the oddest hours with a head held high, singing mostly Muhammad Rafi’s Indian movie hits such as ‘Khoya Khoya Chaand’.

When he sang the ohhhhh part of ‘Khilona Jaan Kar Tum To Mera DIl Tore Jatay Ho’ (Khilona, 1970), Mrs Davey’s pet dog, Nehru, joined in with a loud aaooooo.

The little ones loved it when he sang the inspirational ‘Nanhay Munnay Bachay’ (Boot Polish, 1953).

Of mothers and sisters

In the dim street lights of winter evenings, Puppu’s breath became visible steam as he started an unstoppable musical programme accompanied by finger-snapping.

Vendors appeared with pushcarts lit by bright pump-action gas-lamps and shouted, “Karari rayori…mong-phali” (crisp sesame seed confectionary and peanuts). At their heels came sellers of boiled eggs whose familiar sales pitch was, “Aanday, garam aanday” (hot eggs).

One evening when a beauty passed by, Puppu’s song-memory evaporated and he uttered the unthinkable: “Aanday, garam aanday”.

Offended, she swiftly turned around but slapped a boy who was not the real culprit. Later, a laughing Puppu pacified our wounded soldier by awarding him an edible gallantry medal: garam aanda.

Watching the watchers

At the lane’s fiery gate, a younger boy like me only played the role of a neutral U.N observer who noted that the idle watchers got countless evil eyes from the fairer sex but miraculously caught no eye diseases.

I had, until then, neither studied male philosophy nor female logic and, therefore, found incomprehensible the popular question which occasionally slipped off an irritated girl’s lips:

“Tumharay ghar maen koi maa behan nahi hay?” (Don’t you have a mother or a sister at home?).

Nobody ever answered; they collectively suppressed their smiles because all had over-protected female relatives at home.

Things have changed since then. Now this ‘objectionable sexual harassment’ is a punishable offence that makes top dogs lose their tails because of occasionally unsubstantiated accusations of the ‘me too’ kind but the street romance of the 1960s did lead sometimes to happy marriages and happier children.

END OF PART 1

This article shall be concluded in part 2.

Please come back for more.

© Tahir Gul Hasan, 2020

Coming soon: Puppu Darling Of 3 Temple Road (Part 2). Do return to this space to enjoy Puppu’s pranks and to find out why he was called ‘darling’.

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Urdu words and sentences explained

1. Taat-school: an ill-equipped school for poor people which does not have any furniture and where the students sit on jute-mats placed on the floor.

2. Ghora Haspitaal: ghora is horse and Haspitaal is hospital.

3. Ae Baharo Gawah Rehna: O spring season, bear witness

4. Baray Miyan Diwanay Aisay Na Bano: O old man, don’t be mad this way

5. Mujhay Dunya Walo Sharabi Na Samjho: O people of the world, don’t take me for a drunkard

6. Rooh Afza: A famous summer drink whose name means, that which refreshes the soul

7. Aay Qaid-e-Azam Tera Ehsaan Hay Ehsaan: O great leader, it’s all (meaning creation of Pakistan) a favour from you

8. Aa Meri Rani Lay Ja Chhalla Nishani: O my queen, take my ring as a souvenir (of love)

9. Aasman Say Aya Farishta: an angel has come from heaven

10. Chand Zard Zard Hay: the moon is red

11. Khoya Khoya Chaand: the moon (appears) so lost

12. Khilona Jaan Kar Tum To Mera DIl Tore Jatay Ho: You break my heart thinking it’s a toy

13. Nanhay Munnay Bachay: a very small child