Innocence, Experience and Wisdom

Parijat Sangh (Brotherhood Club)

Origin of the Parijat Sangh

We used to have a club called the "Parijat Sangh" (Brotherhood Club) the ringleader of which was Danjay Da (elder brother) who used to live near the main highway that divided our village from his house. He was in love with the daughter of the Plaza cinema hall gatekeeper, the "bara" uncle who used to live in our village and to be close to her he revived the "Parijat Sangh" that had its origins in the Ramgopal building, a ramshackle mildewed building from the time of the British and which conspicuously hung a communist flag from the first floor of the building where an office used to be. Danjay is dead by the way, he died of some complication of the liver but his wife is still alive and their daughter has gone on to become a doctor in the US. At least 50 families used to live there from Biharis to Tibetans to Nepalis to Bengalis. One Tibetan guy  whom we called "Indu" but who now calls himself Shenn Penn Khamsyar also produced a movie in the US called the Journey of A Dream. They used to have the Anamika restaurant but due to the death of their brother who was known as Lottay, the whole family migrated to Canada after having sold all their property. The Hill town gave them shelter and once they earned money they wanted to move out fearing that the Chinese will also overrun the Hill Town like it did Tibet. Their brother who died was not as smart as "Indu" as there is a story that once he was to jump from the toy train that used to run the length of the town from the train station to its way up to the other town. We as children used to climb on it for a joy ride as the speed was very slow. However, to get down was also a trick as we had to run with the train and then get down so that we would not fall. Lottay was advised by some mischievous guy to run opposite of the train to get down. Next moment, he was down on all his fours and it was only thanks to the alert vehicle driver that he was not overrun by the incoming traffic. He died somewhere in the Capital city jumping from the 5th floor as his wife had called the police due to too much harassment from him and who being scared of the police jumped from the 5th floor. He was found spot dead.  However, their restaurant "Anamika" (meaning Nameless) was a famous one named after a famous Bollywood song and where I tasted Coca cola for the first time. Another famous place was the "bari ko dokan" (aunty's shop) where she used to sell hard drinks. It is there even now and "bari" as ancient as she is, is still there hobbling with a stick in the twilight of her life. She has stopped selling booze now and is now taken care of by her daughter and son in law. I make it a point to visit her and give her company, give her medicine and listen to her. She is a classmate of my grandmother (God bless her soul). I could not visit her last time due to the strike which incidentally happens every July, August and I have had the good fortune to witness it all three times. What luck. 

Charity activities of the Parijat Sangh (Brotherhood Club)

Back to the "Parijat Sangh", now "Parijat Sangh" was a motley collection of all the boys in our village ranging from pre-teens to teenagers, we were indeed a "Parijat Sangh" as we had Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Christians among the majority being Hindus. We were the boy scouts, cum sports team, cum rescue team, cum social workers. Effort was made to use us for political gains but our parents would have none of it and so that episode also ended with a whimper. If there was a landslide we were there for help, if there was a village religious festival to be done, we were there, if there was a marriage, our free volunteer service was there. Another interesting thing or some sort of night club for us was the village get together called "maraw" (a tradition where when a person dies then the village boys would stay awake the whole night and be in the house which was usually for one to two weeks) where the village boys used to go there in the night to stay awake all night drinking ginger tea and playing "taash" (cards) and carom (board game) and telling jokes "doko bhari ko" basketful of jokes. We were essentially there to help the bereaved family cope with their loss. And it was a tradition for the son of the house to be clothed in white, shave his head, even shave his eyebrows and abstain from eating any salt, meat, masala essentially any normal food and would be in a diet of boiled food which was known as "kora basnu" (abstain from normal life) as a sign of bereavement. We would take care of everything from the washing of dishes, to staying awake all night, to cooking the food, providing tea and even sometimes monetary help. Talk about volunteering and also helping with the money. We would even carry the dead body to the cremation which was via a steep road, an hour away from the main town. While coming back from the crematorium, we would have to take a bath and cleanse ourselves with "tittapathey" (bitter leaves) a type of antiseptic plant found everywhere in the hillside otherwise we would not be allowed to enter our houses. I used to wonder why we had to do that but modern science has an explanation, it was for sterilization process as the disease from the dead body would be cleansed if it happened to touch the person in the crematorium. Our ancestors instinctively knew about it and thus the tradition. However, during cold days, it was not a tradition that I was particularly fond of.