My friend Dev D

My friend Dev D

………………………

“I am also from Delhi,” Mrs. M informed me smilingly. She was a healthy lady in her late forties. We were having tea in my office colleague M’s flat in Vasant Kunj, Delhi. My flight to Calcutta was delayed so M took me to his flat to spend the intervening time.

When Mrs.M came to know that  I am originally  from Delhi then she informed me that she was also from Delhi.

I got curious and inquired, “Where did you stay in Delhi?”

“We were in those bungalows behind teacher’s quarter in Gole Market.”

Her above statement made me sit up and look at her closely. I was in my early fifties then and she was in late forties and also has put on weight, I was trying to find that smart girl in skirt whom I first saw on a swing in their garden. This happened when I was in school, possibly in class nine. I had gone to her house with my friend Durga. Durga used to blow away the school fees and she being his love interest used to make up for the shortfall. The visit of Durga was to collect money from her and also let out the secret to me about her being his girlfriend. Durga’s house was in the teacher’s quarter just behind her dad’s official bungalow.

Let me first confess that Durga was some kind of hero in our eyes and also he was one of my closest friends. Those days we were all fan of Devanand, for us Durga was our Devanand. His hair style was like that of Devanand puffed up and all ,his stances were like the hero, even he would dress up like Devanand. He would not miss any movie of Devanand. He had numerous female admirers because of his smart look. His mother was a teacher of a nearby government run public school for girls, we knew about girls going to his house on the pretext of meeting his mother and in turn meet the local Devanand but at no time he let us know that his real love interest was staying behind his house. That kindly chubby lady sitting in front of me that day in Vasant Kunj was that cute girl in her teens swinging merrily in the garden in late nineteen fifties.

While we would be playing football Durga would often bring his friend Zindi with him. He was another care free chap. Those two will keep us rollicking while narrating their recent adventures. Durga was a great bluffer so he was also known as Gulbaj(that's Bengali word for bluffer) Durga in our friends’ circle. In the class Durga would sit next to me and copy my notes. Most of the time he was flushed with money; often he would go out of the class with the pretext of going to the toilet , would come back with pocketful of peanuts and gathia. When we were busy in solving sum he would be busy eating those, he usually shared those with me too. I also gladly accepted his bribes in exchange of allowing him to copy the sums solved by me. Later on I came to know that all those money was from that girl who was staying behind his house...…cut to present, the middle aged lady sitting in front of me in Vasant Kunj.

He failed in class nine and thus could no longer sit next to me. Though he was not in my class but he would come every day to chit chat with me in our play field in chummeries where we were staying those days  which was close to his house in Gole Market.

I passed out and went to IIT, he somehow managed to pass higher secondary and did some kind of private course and became lab assistant in Cambridge School, Delhi.

Whenever I was in Delhi I would meet him in Kalibari of Gole Market. By that time they had shifted from the teacher’s quarter to a government flat on Reading Road near our school, Raisina Bengali. In the meanwhile we had shifted to Wilson Square which was very close to Birla Mandir, now of course those squares are no longer there.

I was told that he was a regular in Kalibari as he was addicted to three cards or was a gambler; he also boasted to me how he was making a tidy sum through gambling. He was much more matured than all of us, he had a steady girlfriend whereas we could not think beyond our studies, and he took to smoking, drinking, gambling much before we could dare to think about those in sixties.

That year I had come for Durga Puja in Delhi from Barauni refinery of IOC where I was posted then, it was sometimes in late sixties. He took me to his house and told me that he was planning to hitch hike to Europe. He showed me a map and elaborated his travel plan. The route was full of danger, he wanted to hitch hike through Khyber Pass to Afghanistan and from there find a way to reach Europe. He showed me his passport to convince me as I was laughing at his foolhardy plan. We used to kid each other a lot so I thought that this was one of his pranks which he was trying to pull on me. I wished him luck and left.

On my next visit I was told that he had left India , had reached Germany, so he was not bluffing about his hitch hike plan to Europe, i felt bad that i was doubting his intent.

After that many years had passed, I had gone to Delhi in 1973 for my first Durga Puja after my marriage and was visiting Kalibari to offer puja with my wife. My mother called someone from a tea stall and said to me , “Can you recognize him?”

A big fat fellow came out of the stall and hugged me tightly and said, “Somu, it has been years since we last met.”

Oh my god it was Durga, he had a French beard and weighing more than 100 kgs whereas I was still below 70kgs. If he would have passed by me in the road I would not have recognized him, it was completely a changed Durga in all respects. I was trying to find out our Devanand in that fat Durga, the real Devanand on the screen was still fit as a fiddle . He called out for someone in the tea stall, a foreign lady came out. She was introduced as his girlfriend and he informed us that he was going to marry her. She was a German lady. I introduced my wife to him and told her about his exploits.

Those days any one going to foreign meant he was minting money.

“You must be earning a good sum there in Germany.” I asked.

“No yar, I am just a worker. There are about 1000 Indians in Germany and I might be the one getting the lowest.”

“Did you see Munich Olympic?” In 1972 the Olympic was held in Munich, there was massacre of players from Israel by Palestinians.

“I was there but not watching the Olympic but breaking ice.” He gave a loud laugh and with that laugh I could get back my old friend Dev D where D stands for Durga.

That was our last meeting….he must have settled there with kids and all. His first love was married to my office colleague and well settled with a college going daughter in 1999.

At the Delhi airport I looked at me closely in the glass and found a man with 38 waist and a receding hair line staring back at me. But those moments in Vasant Kunj transported me back to my school days when I had hardly any pocket money but there was a satisfied complete life with my friends, parents and my relatives. Many of them are no more there. But a chance meeting like this brings back those good old memories and gives a chance to live through those past happy days.