Kishore Bhatt

About two weeks ago I got a wedding invitation, Jwala Bhatt d/o Shambhu Bhatt Weds Mahesh Pande. It was like a bolt from the past. From over fifteen years ago. She must have been six or seven years of pigtails and red ribbons then.

Kishore Bhatt belonged to the hill village of Jageshwar. It’s a very small village in the Pauri Garhwal hills, nestled in tall pine trees famous for a 5000 year old temple of Lord Shiva.

He was the fifth among six children. Four sisters and two brothers. The father was a priest in the temple and also owned a small patch of land on which they would grow some vegetables, potatoes during the summer months. All the kids went to the local government school. He had an ambition that his sons should get educated and stand on their own feet. In addition to attending school when the teachers came, they all helped out in the field and played their make-believe games in the pine forest. Kishore doted on Jwala. She was only an infant then but Kishore would talk to her for long hours.

Of the six, Kishore was the one with stars in his eyes. He looked at you with an impish smile from behind his mother's skirt. His prancing around, much like the many new born lambs they had on the farm, and the shy visage endeared him to the entire village. He often said that one day he would become famous and people patted his head, 'Yes of course Kishore' but no one really meant it.

Our paths were to cross briefly many years later.

The day his eighth standard results were declared he made up his mind. He had had enough of this place. He told Jwala of his plans to go to Delhi. The four year old began sobbing but he managed to pacify her, packed his clothes, books, and his matchbox collection in a small bag and left home early in the morning. He left a small note for his mother,'You'll read about me in the papers'.

Around that time I too had left the cloistered environment of a middle class home to work for Network Limited. After pottering around as a trainee, when I reached Jaipur for my first managerial stint, I dived into the work with gusto. It was a hard core sales driven organisation. A young team of people wanting to make a mark in life did not think anything was impossible.

I rented a house just off Civil lines. This was the first time I was living on my own. The room and kitchen were quite bare. The owner had lent me a folding cot on which I had spread a mat. The kitchen had an electric coil heater and a vessel to boil milk in. Almost twice a week the sales team would gather on my terrace and drink till late in the night. Then all of us would drive our bikes to the station for bread-omelettes.

I had met with an accident on one of my bike trips to another town. I was quite badly bruised and battered and had to come back to Noida for a week to repair myself. Mom's fussing over got me back on my feet pretty quickly. It was during these days that I met Kishore. He was working at a Chinese food restaurant in sector 29. Even slightly Mongoloid features are good enough qualification for you to become a Chinese chef on the food streets of Delhi. Immediately the impish smile and the twinkle in his eye caught your attention.

It was early winter and I was there almost daily alongwith some old friends. The hot topic of our discussions was the Mandal commission report. VP Singh our PM, we were convinced had lost his mind. The overwhelming majority with which he had come to power had all been lost. Student agitations were becoming more strident by the day. We were sure that police's ham handed handling and the students' anger was sure to blow up in his face. In the coming months we saw how Delhi burned.

Once for a party I asked Kishore to come over and cook Chinese at home. During the evening he had won over my entire family with his energy and attitude. Before the evening was over my Mom had asked him if he would go with me to Jaipur to look after me. He promised to think about it and revert the next day. It was two days later on the Saturday that I was to leave that he came in the morning. He had a bag full of his stuff and a rolled up bedding.

He boarded the bus with me that night. All the way he told me about his hills, his house, his farm, his parents and his little sister Jwala. How he had left home with a burning desire to get famous. How he had struggled and got abused in the ruthless urban jungle. And how that desire was still burning.

It took him all of two hours to fix up my house. He went out purchased all the kitchen stuff and vegetables. That day I had my first proper meal at home and slept peacefully in the afternoon. Within a couple of days he had structured my routine and told me that he would like to earn a bit more by working at a nearby Dhaba. I agreed as there was hardly any work to do at home.

Every night we would sit out on my terrace, he would tell me more about his village life and sing the hill songs. Then one day he told me about a bunch of student leaders who had started using his Dhaba as their meeting point. They were, he said, really angry at the government for proposing reservations in jobs. They seemed assured that the local press is supportive of their stand. Their leader's picture with statements had been carried in both the papers. Just before dozing off to sleep I remember telling him to ignore these guys and not get involved with them.

I went off to Kota for two days on a business trip. When I returned I found that Kishore was like in a trance. He was singing to himself and looking really happy below the surface. After dinner, I did not need to do much to get him talking. In the last two days, his Dhaba had been infested with newspaper journalists. Student leaders as well as the journalists had kept zooming in and out on bikes all day. He had served endless cups of tea to them. The twinkle in his eyes said a lot more than just the account of comings and goings at the Dhaba. I felt that he was getting involved in the agitation. The lure of his name in print seemed too much for him to resist. I warned him quite sternly that night.

Another two days passed. On Saturday next I was at my office when I saw an urchin ride up on a bicycle and try to come in. He looked quite stressed and was frantically searching for someone. As he saw me his eyes lit up and ran up to me. I recognised him from Kishore's Dhaba. He looked scared, spoke rapidly and I could not understand a word. I just heard Kishore.. hospital.. ..burnt and rushed out.

I reached the SMS General Hospital ten minutes later and rushed to the burns ward. Kishore lay there unconscious, his face looked clean and serene. As I got closer I saw that the rest of his entire body was charred, hair had matted on to his scalp, finger nails had burnt off. Panic built up in the pit of my stomach and tears welled up. I looked around for the doctor. He told me that Kishore was in an extremely serious condition and pointed towards the two cops who had brought him to the hospital. I was puzzled and shocked.

The cops then told me the story. The student leaders at the Dhaba were looking to create a sensation and had been planning a dramatic demonstration against the Mandal commission. They had come up with this new idea of protesting. Self-immolation. Shit!

I sat all day next to Kishore. I went back home at night and was back there next morning. He had been slipping in and out of consciousness. He woke up for a while and in between cries of pain asked me to bring his bag from home. I went and brought it before he woke up again in the night. His entire life's belongings were stuffed in a jute bag. He made me open it. I took out a tattered wallet, it had about four thousand rupees, a small box that had his matchbox collection and some letters he had written but not posted. He asked for a small red plastic box that contained two gold ear-rings and a pink tie and dye cotton saree.

I put all the things on the bed next to him and showed them to him one by one. He could not move his hands, he just rubbed his face on the saree. He broke down completely when I showed him the ear-rings. The tough kid from the hills was weeping openly. The patients on the next bed thought it was his wounds but only I could see his eyes.

'These are for Jwala's wedding. Will you promise to go and give it to her?' 'Of course Kishore' I began but he was not listening to me any more. He became delirious. Began speaking in his native tongue. I heard strains of the folk songs that he sometimes sang at home in between his cries. Nurses came and gave him a sedative. Before falling into sleep he opened his eyes and asked, 'Did I make the papers?'.

Kishore never woke up again. He passed away around mid-night. Next morning I did the last rites on my own. I went to the temple, prayed for him and came back home completely desolate. I opened the door to my house. As I kept the jute bag on the floor I saw the last two days newspapers and remembered his dying question. On page four there was a small one inch space which mentioned of an immigrant worker at a Dhaba committing suicide and that the police was investigating further.

I went to Jageshwar after a week. I met his parents and family. I met Jwala. Same impish smile, same twinkling eyes and pigtails.

Mewalal

I studied in Air Force Central School, now called TAFS in Subroto Park. I was a boarder during the three years I spent here. Since back then teenage boys were not yet obsessed with pornographic MMS', we were intensely involved in sports. Most boarders were in one or the other school team. Everyone would go to cheer all the school matches. Our basket-ball and soccer teams were of a really high quality.

Our most prized possessions were always the sports kit. Gola and Bhogal came and initiated us to soccer shoes much before Nike. We had to buy them on installments from the pocket money we were allowed. The shoes were always kept shiny and their studs cleaned of mud everyday. The meticulous care we took of our playing shorts, jerseys and stockings would have made any parent proud. Mewalal became an important person for us. He was our Dhobi laundry man. With only two sets of playing clothes being available, they needed to be washed and ironed every day.

Mewalal was in his late forties, short, skinny and always had a string of pearls smile on his dark face. He spoke very little but had a cute Bengali sludge to his Hindi. We were all quite fond of him. We would make small bundles of our laundry, stuff a small chit with the count of clothes inside and leave them on our beds before going to school. When we came back, the previous day's linen would be lying there washed, ironed and crisply folded.

We did not meet him often as his work was done when we were away at school. We would occassionaly meet him in the evenings or on holidays. He was just one of the staff working to make our lives easy. But he was to become a very important person in our lives during the winter of '78.

Inter-school soccer had great importance for us as we were the defending champions that year. JP Anand was the all sport resident coach for us. We had a great team and were in good form. Jappu as he was called, made our team physically fit and made us play in the traditional 5-3-2-1 format of hockey. Attacking soccer had won us many games, however in the run-up to the tournament we played against a French school team from the embassy and were thrashed 7-0.

As the tournament began, we beat Springdales 2-1 and had games coming up against Bal Bharti and Sports School Rai. We were desperate to improve our goal difference against Bal Bharti so that we had some cushion against the other tough team. We screwed up. Lost the game 0-1 against the weakest team and were completely shattered. We were losing our grip, and to top it all Jappu fell from stairs and broke his ankle. The entire team felt that we were sure to be knocked out by Rai.

After a hard evening's practice, five of us were sitting in the hostel lawns, knocking a football around and chatting. That's when Mewalal sauntered past and asked, 'What's wrong with you guys? Your drooping faces look as if Jappu has thrashed you all'. Atul our centre-half was pissed and let him have it,' Jappu can't even walk to the loo. You better mind your own business if you want to stay on your feet'. He was knocking the ball on his knees and suddenly kicked a half-volley at Mewalal. I was sitting on the steps and thought the frail Mewalal would get knocked off. But he took it on his chest, bounced it up on his knee and headed it back to Atul so hard that he turned and took it on his hip. We turned to look at him in amazement. How could get so much power in the header with hardly any ball toss? and control off the chest?

'Do you know how to play soccer?', 'Where did you learn to head like that?', 'Let's see what else you know'. Within a minute a three-a-side soccer game had started in the lawns. He was better than all of us put together. His ball control, passing, headers were something we had never seen before. In barely ten minutes, he had us panting and had scored thrice through the make-shift goal posts. All our screaming and shouting had got quite a few kids to the balconies and they were all witnessing something really extra-ordinary. Mewalal, we all realised was in a different league. The moment he saw a crowd building up he stopped the game, made an excuse and went back home.

We went to our dorms in silence, took a shower and got ready for dinner. We filed past the prefects for dinner and took our places in silence. It was a Wednesday and mutton stew was to be served. Normally our favourite, but today we were like in a trance. Barely spoke to each other. As was our routine we would go for a walk after dinner and chat up. Suddenly Atul said,'Lets go to Mewalal's house'. We ran back to the dining hall and found out from the waiters that he lived in a one-room apartment on the campus itself. With a spring now in our steps we walked in the direction of his house.

It was quite dark and there was a chill in the air. We could see long clothes lines strung across bamboo stilts. White sheets and assorted clothes were shimmering in the moon-light. It was easy to find. He had just sat down to dinner when we burst in. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor and did not seem surprised to see us.

He took only ten minutes and came out of the house. He washed his hands, took out a pack of Panama cigarettes and sat on a bench. 'Yes?'. 'Were you expecting us?' I said. 'You don't look like ones to let unanswered questions go. Yes I thought you would come'. Atul asked, 'Where did you learn to play soccer like that?''It's a long story. One of immense pride for me and my family as also of sadness. Its also something I don't want to be made public'. After our assurances he embarked on his tale.

Even in the period when India's independence movement gathered momentum, there was always a kind of soccer mania in Bengal. So it was not surprising that he took to soccer very early. At almost the same age as we were. Very soon he could out dribble much bigger opponents in his school near Behala. He would think of football all the time. He joined a small local club and got to play some good matches. One of the talent scouts picked him up to play for Bengal. He was the sure then that he had arrived. He got his first pair of shoes.

Bengal team had India seniors Taj Mohammed and SM Kaiser in their ranks. Mewalal was a pocket sized dynamo in the forward line. His speed and skill made him a special target of opponents. His dominance of local football scene of this period ensured that he was a serious contender for the national line-up. When it was known that after missing out one edition due to the war the next Olympics were to be held in London, there was all round anticipation in his village.

True enough, his name was there in the papers as one of the probables. A camp was to be held in Bombay before departing to London on a ship. The final sixteen would be selected there. He packed his only pair of shoes and reached Bombay. His fire and passion in the camp was infectious. He was destined for greater things and was aboard the ship to possible glory.

Mewalal's time was to come three years later at home. The first ever Asian Games were played in Delhi. He was also at the pinnacle of his form. India won gold. Mewalal scored in all the three matches that India played and won. He scored four of the seven goals that India scored in the tournament. A year later a Quadrangular was played in Colombo. India beat Ceylon and Burma. Mewalal scored 4 of the six goals that India scored and won the tournament. He was feted across the country and the world. Pandit Nehru met him and his pictures came across all papers.

He played once more on the big stage the Helsinki Olympics before fading away completely and surfacing twenty five years later in my school as a Dhobi.

His eyes were swimming with tears. His rough, dark cheeks were wet and he was choking with emotions as he completed his tale. All of us had a lump in our throats as we sat on the ground stunned. He quitely got up and walked in to his house and went to sleep. Without saying anything all of slowly got up as the hour bell rang twelve times.

Next day Atul sent us a message to meet up behind dining hall during the lunch hour. He looked determined as all twelve of us got together. He suggested that we take on Mewalal as our coach for the tournament and bring him back some of his lost stature. The task of convincing him was left to Atul and myself. Both of us went to his house that evening before the games hour. After pleading, begging, motivating, cajoling we finally had to threaten him that we would disclose his secret to all if he refused.

He reached the ground half an hour later. He was dressed in India colours. What a sight. The sheer joy of wearing the Olympic soccer shoes, in his eyes was worth going miles to see. His fervour was even greater than our own love for the game. There was a bonding here which was unexplainable. With two days to go for a must win game, Mewalal set about teaching us the 4-2-4 format. How the two linkmen gave us the flexibility to attack with six and defend with six. Mewalal taught us man-to-man marking, tight defence, off the ball running, drawing away defenders. All these to early-teenagers was like gospel being told and Mewalal was Christ.

The team was so determined to win the trophy for him that the tension was palpable. On the day of the match with Sports School Rai, none of us went to school. We met in my dorm and spoke to each other with a determination I did not think existed. We all got dressed and quietly boarded the bus. Mewalal did not come with us. He sent us off with a prayer.

The game was very intense. The memories of the game are etched in my mind forever like a slow motion replay. We were 1-0 up at half time and won the game against the best team in the tournament 2-0. We did not allow them to take a single shot at our goal. Mewalal had helped us do a remarkable turn-around.

We went on to defend the title that year. Jappu was there when the trophy was awarded at National stadium as the school coach. But we all knew. Later that evening, we took the trophy from the sports room, wore our individual medals, smuggled in many bottles of beer and went to Mewalal's room. There we celebrated through the night as he regaled us with more soccer stories. After a couple of bottles of beer he began to slip into his native Bangla but we did not mind. His joy of the evening seemed even greater than ours.