Uma - TinTin and Amitabh Bachchan

Uma  is walking back from school, all alone.

In front of her and behind her a group of giggly boys and aggressive girls prance about shouting wildly to the heavens.

Our Uma is a ‘prim and proper’ girl, she does not indulge in such frivolities!

“How silly these girls are” she thinks to herself, a sentence she will repeat all her life, her Mantra to disengage from those who appear to her as lacking in gravitas.

“A full pot doesn’t wobble” her mother has told her in chaste Telugu each time she is subject to a homily and she does not want to behave like a wobbly pot, she is full, isn’t she? Full of Maths, Science, English and Geography. She has also filled her head with newspaper articles, film news, gossip from the neighbourhood and the sonorous Sanskrit shlokas one must memorize to improve one’s memory.

She likes to be in the know our Uma. If there is something someone mentions and she has never heard of it before, she takes it badly.

“I must read all that there is to not let it happen next time” she swears to her hurt heart, “How could I have been so ignorant?” she scolds herself yet again. Despite hating order and discipline Uma repeats everything. She has been informed from the Holy Texts in translation that repetition is the Key. You repeat an action, it becomes a habit, you repeat a good action, you become a good person. It is really simple, isn’t it? She cannot understand why so many non-good people do not just follow this so simple do-good formula.

“I must read all that there is” she told herself yet again while in front of her and behind her boys and girls danced to film tunes mainly because it was forbidden. Her school did not allow any film songs to be sung in its grounds and last year when a boy performed to an innocentChal Chal Chal Meray Haathi O Meray Saathi he was rusticated! It disgusted her that these boys were doing something that was explicitly out-of-bounds. Maybe they too hate discipline like me she thought, which brought her to the end of the road that ran directly from school with a choice of a Left and a Right.

Here was the tough part, she did not enjoy being disciplined, she could barely stand school or her classmates so how could she comment, even to the privacy of her gold studded ears, about these ruffians who sang with such gusto the lamentations of a ludicrous lover. She waited and waited, should she go left or right? This same road everyday with its same same choices was boring her to death and she was not even 12 yet. Oh! dear what was she to do? The  lifeline  on her right palm showed her that she would live at least to be seventy!! Another sixty years of servitude to a life of a left and a right. Buddha had preached a Middle Eight Fold Path of which she had read about in the Ramakrishna Mission books but that too was a compromise. One ought to be able to fly. FLY. 

Thank God for the fact that she was a Hindu, she would take solace in the fact that she could still be a bird in her next janam. It must be terrible , TEERRIIBBLLE, being a Christian or a Muslim, no? With no choice but to do everything in this one life. Plus how did they explain the fact that she, despite her obvious intelligence had no friends while Reena, proud possessor of a silly name and a sillier demeanour was the most popular girl in school? Wasn’t it all about Karma? And how could one neglect to mention forget that ‘they’ blamed the women for every little sin …..anyone officially holding the female responsible for any evil was not fit to lead, that she was sure of. Whether or not these religions really did blame the women, she would see. She had another sixty boring years to figure that out. Right now, right or left?

Uma retraced her steps into a slow leisurely stroll through the ‘short cut’ in the forest. Of course she was warned against it! Why else would she take this path? Of course they had whispered in garishly scary tones saying that there were poisonous snakes, tigers, leopards lurking about….If only all of life’s roads were as exciting…she thought. And she thought.

“I don’t like the boys singing vulgar songs with my classmates not because they are breaking rules but because their intention behind it is wrong, these boys are just teasing them, making use of their naivete and the stupid girls just lap up the attention….. ” she told the trees with creepers that reached down from the very heavens as if bowing to her great wisdom. The difference between her defiance and theirs was that she was not hurting anyone by taking this slippery groany creaky stoney path while they were misusing their choice, their right to be free by harming the poor girls’ innocence….YES!! that was it.

It was cheating pure and simple though how was one to prove a wrong intention?

And that is why she must read all that there is. So boys like these would not be allowed to make fun of her while they ostensibly sang songs of praise in her presence. Currently there was hardly any chance of being teased or noticed. She might be eaten by a Tiger and no one would even know. There was a man-eater right here in these jungles, created by some crazed tea plantation manager who was showing off his hunting skills to a visiting gora.

“What are you doing here? Don’t you know this road is for boys only?” Bharat’s voice unmistakably.

“What are YOU doing here? Don’t you know that this world is for girls only?” Uma couldn’t resist the retort. Here I go playing the foolish game of you and I while we all know from Amar Chitra Katha that this world is just Maya she thought.

 “There will be nothing in the world without us, who will earn big money, who will take care of the women, who will save you from the Tigers?”Bharat smirked knowing very well that she was frightened enough to have made the mistake of answering him back.

Normally as a rule, she avoided him.

She liked him a lot even if he said illogical things such as men being important to the world mainly because Bharat was one of those who broke rules, bended and amended them with such grace that she could only gape in admiration. Of course letting him think so would not do any good to either of them. He might preen and might spoil her image of him that she held so dear, that of a spoilt, naughty, proud, intelligent boy who had the sensitivity and humility to acknowledge his own errors.

“…Though no one needs to take care of you, that I know” he added confidently.

Uma smiled secretly happy that Bharat acknowledged her courage even though she knew the truth of the matter, which was that right now she was terrified. Not only did she have to worry about Tigers, Snakes and such but there was the delicate question of the ‘boy’ who had appeared out of nowhere, people would not like this, when they walked out of a thicket chatting merrily, it would seem so very inappropriate, even at her age she knew that the society she was so proud to be a part of had its limitations. One such was their inability to understand that an innocent friendship could exist between a boy and a girl. This to her was the worst part of her culture. All the people she liked happened to be boys. Although the CONCEPT of ‘boys’ was anathema to her - The idea of a ‘boy’ as seen and practiced by society not boys as humans per se.

“Uma why are you running?” Bharat started to run himself “He won’t get here till 8.00 clock, we have a lot of time….you might scare the snakes…hehe”

“Who?” Uma was more perplexed than scared at this point.

“Amitabh Bacchan” he threw the name out triumphantly."Didn’t you know? All uncles and aunties are getting ready for him at the Officer’s Mess, there is a welcome party at 8.00, if we walk to the front maybe we can see him getting out of the car, no?"  

Uma’s careening stride came to an abrupt screeching halt.  Dust bowls flew out of her angry soles that hit the ground in disgust. Such an important event and it had all happened without her knowledge? Not even an inkling? How was it possible? Who was responsible? How had she failed in gathering such important information? Even her ‘informers’, a bunch of friends who had joined her Secret Service Club had not had any whiff of this …surely?

Her faced turned sallow and gusts of embers shot out making the air hot with her seething.

“How do you know?” she could barely manage to ask, a question that buried her self esteem forever inside this dark forest.

“Oh! All our dads know, papa told me, yours didn’t? They knew a week ago so they could make security arrangements, we get to meet him tomorrow morning at the Library…they are on their way to Ooty…you are coming na?“

“I wanted to but I think we are going out of town, actually to Ooty, I think we plan to see him there...” Uma could lie very convincingly of course.

“Accha hai yaar, no school! How I wish papa would take us out often like Uncle…” Bharat was not really concentrating on her or them, at this moment he was too pre-occupied in clearing the path ahead with a long twig to warn the said snakes. He seemed more scared than she was of reptiles, all his bravado in school…poof!

She realized that he was not totally unaware of her comings and goings either. Last time she had lied about going away was when Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian Astronaut ever had visited their Air Force Camp. Her father had not mentioned this monumental news to his near and dear, making them miss the hullabaloo that surrounded such a personality, parties, autographs, photographs. She and her mother were the only two people in the whole of Sulur NOT to have seen Sqn Ldr Sharma, what an insult!

Her reputation at her Secret Service Club was bound to suffer unless she created an alibi for herself, for her absence. Thus the story about her visit to Mudumalai Sanctuary, with her interest in wildlife she could spin off endless anecdotes involving Paradise Fly Catchers till her intended audience got maha bored. Bharat though was barred from her coterie, first he was a boy, second she was very fond of him.

“Why do you want to see Rakesh Sharma? What is so great about him? Autograph? How foolish is my child getting, wanting a silly signature from someone whose achievement is being the first INDIAN in space!! Is he the first man in space? No. If it wasn't for the Russians...Who is the first man in space, tell me? C'mon.Who is the first woman to walk in space?....” herNanna  had continued to thunder at her turning her blame into a quiz contest.

She knew his answer to this one.

“Who is Amitabh Bacchan tell me, what is his greatness? Is he the first human to act? Did he write any great literature? My child wants to see him? SEE him? Tell me who acted as Othello in…..”

Uma started to think that her lack of friends was not as much Karmic as the fact that she was hardly a part of her peer group, apart from the fact that she did not really enjoy their company, her father made it harder by brushing aside all normal known aspects of a kid’s life as foolish and not worthy of her time.

“Bharat, since you will be busy with Amitabh’s visit the next few days, may I borrow your Tintins?”

Silence. Bharat, it was well known did not lend his comics to anyone. She would know soon where she stood with him, if her hunches were right.

“Haan par no reading in the potty, no tearing pages and if you forget them in Ooty or lend them to Amitji, you buy me two for one, ok?”

“Can you leave them with your ayaah then? I’ll collect them tomorrow while you are busy with...” she could barely say the name. Was she sad that she would miss seeing the legendary actor because she liked him or was it because she was being left out? She was jealous. How horrible, she did not like feeling negative thoughts like these. She was not a big fan really, she hardly understood Hindi, she was angry at her father for keeping her ignorant.

Ha, hunch was right but he was still a boy. Men should not bargain with women, in her world, they ought to lay the whole universe at a lady’s feet on demand.

“Papa who wrote Tintin, tell me?” She would quiz, she knew for a fact that her father had never heard of Herge nor especially his real name.