Dear Friends,
Regular readers of my blog would know about my invitation to contribute as ‘guest-bloggers’ to post their ‘ArTickles’ here.
With great pleasure, I am posting one such guest-post by Shri. Gourang Kodical, an established and renowned Tabla player.
To learn more about Gourang, please click on this link here.I am sure readers will enjoy reading this piece! Thank you , Gourang! How we were taken for a ‘Flight’ to Singapore
(Category: NON-FICTION!)
Written (with mixed feelings) by Shri. Gourang Kodical
Being a Tabla player of fair repute and experience, I was no stranger either to foreign travel, or to being felicitated for my many years of services for the cause of Indian classical music.
On 23rd March (2005), when I returned home for lunch from one of my rare visits to the Bank from where I retired, my wife Kusum informed me that one Mr Anant Kumar had called in my absence and wanted to speak to me regarding a function organized to felicitate me in Singapore. Although I was a little taken aback, I did not want to show my elation to Kusum and pretended to look as casual as possible. On second thoughts, I brushed the whole thing aside as a probable flaw in Kusum’s hearing or just a figment of her imagination.
Around dinner time that evening, the gentleman promptly called again. He introduced himself as the person who, 10 years ago had come to pick me up and drop me back by cab during an all night music festival arranged by Protima Gowri Bedi in her
Nritya Graam. Then again, for two consecutive years when I had participated in the Festivals arranged by the Dept of Culture at Hampi, he had been in the batch of active volunteers who were given the responsibility of looking after the needs and comforts of all us Artistes which included Pandits Hariprasad Chaurasia, Rajan & Sajan Misra, Dinkar Kaikini etc.
He went on to say that he had called to inform me that
‘Kannada Koota’, an active cultural Organisation of Kannadigas in Singapore comprising about a thousand families from Karnataka had planned to honour me during their 4th anniversary celebrations on 30/31 March, 2005. I was absolutely dumbfounded – not because I had to go to Singapore (Oh, I had done it several times!), and certainly not because I was to be felicitated (by now I was a past master at getting felicitated!!) – dumbfounded because it was such a short notice - just one week, can you believe it?
I was told that the Organisers would bear all travel, stay, and sight seeing expenses for me and an escort (who better than my wife? - I thought…, and told him so). As I did not want Anant Kumar to think that the entire operation would be a cakewalk for him, I told him that since my wife had never crossed the Kaveri, leave alone the Bay of Bengal, she did not have a Passport. On this count, he immediately put me at ease by saying that he owned a Tours and Travels Agency and he would do the needful in a jiffy (called ‘
Tatkal’ in our country), but that he would require four copies of Kusum’s photographs, her SSLC cumulative record as proof of age and the latest telephone bill as proof of residence. I told him that all this discussion was getting to be a bit too heavy for me over the phone and would he please come home next morning to sort out things?
Anant (observe how I am gradually getting more and more intimate with the bloke – next time around I may call him Anantu or Antu!) was very punctual and landed up at 10:30 as agreed. A tall and handsome chap in his mid 30s, he looked vaguely familiar (
maine-aapko-pahele-bhi-kaheen-dekha-hai-sort of feeling). At this point, I must be honest with you and make one thing clear. I have an unenviable reputation for being absent minded – when you have the time, you must come home and listen to Kusum, she has hundreds of anecdotes to prove this, and she really gets carried away sometimes. He very impressively (I was impressed, what i mean) bent down and touched my feet, and asked me if I remembered him ‘now’ -- and I said, Yes of course, why not, and how could I forget and all that one usually says when so asked. He must have secretly gloated that he had won half the battle.
During the small talk that followed, he gave us a ‘lot of information’ about himself…. That he was a
Brahmin too (he just had to see our Swamiji’s portrait in the Hall to conclude that we were God-fearing Brahmins), that his Agency office was situated in a massive Apartment complex called High Point, that his house was on Railway Parallel Road (the road is almost as long as the Bangalore-Chennai line), that he had been making travel arrangements for all the music groups which went abroad through the State Government bodies. He rattled off the names of all the Artistes who I knew, had gone overseas on concert tours in the recent past. Our friend was punctuating the narration with dry, uneasy coughs. Kusum promptly went in and brought him a glass of warm water mixed with turmeric to drink – the cough vanished. Later, with tea she also fed him some freshly made banana halwa which he liked immensely and helped himself to his heart’s content.
He then provided us with the details of our forthcoming rapid tour. We were to leave on the 29th night by the 11:30 pm direct Bangalore-Singapore flight. Our stay had been arranged in the Concorde Hotel. The felicitation would be held on the 30th evening. That evening and the next, they would hold the cultural programmes like folk music and dances. On April 1st (does the date ring a bell?) and 2nd, the main Conference would be held, which would be attended by delegates from all over the Far East like Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia etc….. If we wished, we were welcome to participate in this, or else we could utilize the time for visiting our friends and relatives and/or shopping (slurp…slurp…). You see, by now Kusum had already made a mental list of the items to buy, ‘gold’ being at the top of course, and I had finished my packing mentally – which
Kurta and
Chudidar to wear for the main function, which after-shave to carry, and so on.
On the 3rd, the Organisers had very thoughtfully arranged for all the VIPs (not to forget, we are included) to be taken for sight seeing. Anantu (see, didn’t I tell you?) gave us the option of staying back for the entire attractive schedule and returning with him on the 4th, or flying back soon after the felicitation if we were in a hurry to get back. Would a couple who has gone all the way to Singapore (especially with the wife going for the first time) ever agree to return in 24 hours?..... NO CHANCE, BUDDY!!
In addition to my original Passport (which he wanted for getting the visa), we handed over Kusum’s photographs, her SSLC cumulative record (in original), her B A Hons certificate (in original), and – please hold your breath! – one of our wedding photographs (December, 1970) and the Wedding Invitation as proof of Kusum’s change of surname from Padukone to Kodical. And as if this was not enough, he took from me Rs. 1,500/= in cash towards charges for the
Tatkal Passport. He promised to return all the originals at 2:30 pm the same afternoon (it was around noon then) after getting them photocopied. We have not seen him since…..
In our blind trust, we had not taken his visiting card, nor had we asked him the name and address of his Agency, nor taken his residential address. In the normal circumstances, I am the ‘scatter brain’ in the house and my wife is said to more than make up for my deficiency. But these were not normal circumstances. He had played on our psychology like a
Tabla! Kusum had never stepped out of India. This information was given to him by none else but me on the previous day, and he must have figured out how keen she would be to grab the chance. Even though I have mentioned in the opening paragraph that I am no stranger to being honoured getting felicitated one more time would have meant one more feather in my cap – and a Singaporean feather at that!
This young rascal Antu had even timed his move with such brilliant forethought. He called on us on a holiday (on account of Good Friday), followed by a Saturday and Sunday – a long weekend (indeed!). Moreover, with the Indo-Pak second Test match going on in the city, there is a massive deployment of the police force at the stadium and there are only a handful of sleepy, grumpy police personnel to accept FIRs from unfortunate mortals like us. (This is not to say that they accept FIRs on other days, though – only that the degree of difficulty to do so may be lower)
Needless to say, Kusum and I spent the major part of Holi (most lacklustre) in the Police Station today. For want of proper particulars about the person and also because we had handed over the documents to him of our own volition, the cranky custodians of law advised us to file an FIR stating that we had lost the documents while taking a stroll near the Malleshwaram Market (can you beat that?) – and we took their advice.
So, Ant must be freaking about freely somewhere. Putting this experience of ours on paper may be one way of trying to dry our tears, but it sure felt nice while it lasted.
Author's Post-Script On Wednesday of the following week (30-3-05), we received all the documents (including my passport) by courier, in a neatly and carefully packed calico envelope! So, at the end of the day, you could say that I had lost only Rs.1,500/= in cash, apart from some day dreams that were vanished alongwith the deceiving Antu. On Thursday, I was to go and apply for a duplicate passport paying the charges and penalty amounting to a small fortune. I had kept all the papers and the amount ready.
My good friend, who is the MD of a multi national Travel Agency (genuine!), was astonished when he heard that I had got the passport back. He was saying that this Anant Kumar must be either totally off his rocker or he must have been a novice at his act of deception to have acted this way because, he says, a stolen passport can be worth around 5 to 6 lakhs in the underworld market. Or maybe it was some Divine Powers, which I always believed would come to my help, whenever in distress.
Blogger's Post-ScriptA very apt story on the occasion of Holi! After all Holi involves sprinkling colours and allowing your friends to apply colour is symbolic of allowing others to ridicule /make fun of/ you. Akin to the spirit of this account of being ridiculously taken for a "flight"! Wish you all enjoy your Holi!
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