Take but one path and keep moving on it and you shall find the House of Wine.

Objects of symbolism all ~ wine, the house, the cup, saki - all symbolic emblems that can relate to life and being and existence. Take but any one path and move on it sincerely and you shall one day indeed find your destination. Many youngsters stepping out into the world of opportunity, stumbling and uncertain where to go and what to do, often ask from those with experience, what the nature of their conduct be to achieve their goal. And many among the learned and wise give all kinds of different ideas, structures, examples to follow. But the poet in Madhushala recommends that you but take up any path and if you doggedly concentrate on it without wavering, you shall one day find that destination you are looking for or seeking.

As peer pressure pushes a lot of us into academics and education of a particular order, we dutifully obey. In my time there were no options. There were limited opportunities and limited means to access them. Graduating with a degree from University was the utmost priority preferred. So one gets into College. Perhaps the process of admissions were not as severe as they seem to be now ; one hears of horrifying stories from young students these days of the inability to enter the portals of higher education without sufficient qualifications, they being of extremely high standard. One also hears of the allocations to various categories of people, of reservations and classified compartments. All these are most sensitive in nature and ill advised to get into, but the desire of those that wish to pursue further studies should never be hampered. And I hope and pray that deserving students be given their due.

Having entered the educational system and achieved the prime goal of acquiring a degree, one is left probing in the dark as to where they would go next. The desire to quickly acquire a job, to be able to stand on your own feet, to be able to take on the responsibility of looking after the family is so acute and intense that sometimes, indeed most times, we tend to overlook the prerequisite for such activity.

It is perhaps comfortable for me today to say that getting into College was a natural process, more as a social necessity, than one of a committed desire to study with the aim of a goal that I had wanted to achieve. My priorities were obviously all wrong. I had no goal and no destination. But because it was socially the correct line to follow, I applied for a seat in an institution, which to me and to others seemed a likely destination of some significance. It was the Delhi University, one of the five important institutions recognized in the country. And the application went to St Stephen’s College, the primary College within the campus - Delhi University being designed much like the two other British Universities, Cambridge and Oxford with several different Colleges in one large area. Some of my colleagues from Sherwood had applied for a science course and I followed suit, without even the slightest knowledge as to where and what this would take me to. I was denied admission in St Stephen’s. Not because I was not eligible, but because I was not eligible for the course I wanted. The principal during my interview, or was it called the ‘viva’, explained to me that it would be better off for me to do a B.A(Hons) in English, but the adamancy of youth and the fear of fairing poorly in Grammar in School, made me decline the offer. Had I relented then at least my blog would have had better quality of writing. Ha !

So.. disappointed and not knowing which direction or path to take, I spent a few days moping around until my loving parents seeing the plight of their son and the road that he wished not to take, found an alternative in a place out of Delhi, but not too distant - the Government College, Chandigarh. And off I bussed it to the Hostel there and spent a fortnight, getting wet in the monsoon rains, drinking ice cold colas and drumming my hands on the desk in my room, over the drone of a table fan, with no direction or intent of where I was wanting to go and why I was doing what I was doing in Chandigarh. My poor parents still wanting to fulfill their sons desire persisted with some of the other Colleges around the campus in Delhi and found a place for me at the Kirori Mal College and asked me to return back. So KM College it was. I was home, I was in Delhi University and I was doing BSc( Gen), the course I had wanted. A course that I knew not where it would take me. A course that I took because I wasn’t getting anything else. A course that I forgot the day I passed out and a course that has been of no use to me in the future direction of my life.

Social necessity was it not that I had referred to earlier ? I should have known better ! The social necessity soon became a social issue. Much like the affluent sophistication of the Ivy League in USA and its equivalents in Great Britain, Delhi University too had its share of this most unhealthy malaise. St Stephen’s was the elite, all others were infra dig. Miranda House was fine, Lady Sri Ram was not. And Hindu College, Ramjas, Hansraj, Kirori Mal were treated similarly. Now of course all that has changed. Equality and respect prevails. That was 1958 its 2009 now and each College has built its reputation and great importance not just in academics but in all other curriculums too, particularly in sports and other artistic fields ; some of the alumni becoming national and international celebrities. From my own fraternity, Shah Rukh Khan is from Ramjas and several others from Kirori Mal and Hindu. But during those early days in KM, we could feel the discrimination, among our community of students. It was never loud and obvious, but it was there. And the more it occurred, the more the desire arose within us to defeat it. And defeat it we did. Our academics got better, our sports improved; we started beating the top teams from other Colleges and actors from KM were chosen along with others to work in a play that was being staged by Miranda House !! It was a play called ‘The Rape of the Belt”, a comedy quite obviously, and yours truly auditioned for and was given the role of Zeus, in a three- act that satired on Greek mythological characters.

That three year BSc(Gen) degree was accomplished by mugging up those select and so thoughtfully designed helper books, which if you succeeded in following, were able to guarantee a modicum of success in the finals. I scraped through with a 2nd class. But even after the convocation was over and I had brought home the scroll of honor and the black robe, there was no path that I could see, or a direction I could follow.

Those frustrating months after College became acute enough for my Father to write a poem about it, when I had an outburst with him - my first and last ever - the details of which I have given in a much earlier post. I was back again in this vacuum of uncertainty. And I was back again in that social cauldron, where a job and the qualities of the job were becoming prime.

Learning about young graduates from good institutions being recommended for executive jobs in Managing Agency Houses of British run Companies in Calcutta, I boarded the 3rd Class seater, 24 hour train ride to the city of opportunity and landed at Howrah Station with hope, expectation and my only single formal wear - a raw silk khadi jacket, a pair of black cotton trousers a white shirt and a black tie, bought and stitched up for me by my parents through their meagre salary, enough dressing I thought, to impress a bench of prospective Directors of a Board.

The procedures were much the same as getting into the elite College of social choice. You looked for the ‘named’ Companies, put on your raw silk khadi jacket from the Cottage Industry in Connaught Place, New Delhi, got on to the tram from Tollygunj, where I was graciously put up by one of my Father’s friend and file in hand, carrying bio data, went canvassing from office to office hoping that someone would recognize the potential of a 2nd degree BSc from Kirori Mal College and my Zeus stint at Miranda. That is, provided you made it to the offices in time. The Esplanade area where all the offices were housed, filled up with monsoon rain up to the waist at the slightest downpour. So the khadi jacket was off and over the head to cover the hairstyle, the cotton trousers were rolled up to the knees, and shoes on head Mr Potential Executive, waded through those narrow but expectant streets, waiting at each Company doorway for Cottage Industry attire to dry.

Most of the rejections happened because of poor GK - General Knowledge. Do you know what is Kanu ? or Kadu ? This to a guy that ran Kaun Banega Crorepati 40 years later, the irony !! No sir I do not know what they are. Lovely meeting you, we shall get back, thank you.

Sacrificing dinner costs, to buy a general knowledge book and going through every possible GK information and yes finding out what those peculiar sounding names were - KANU - Kenya African National Union and KADU - Kenya African Democratic Union. Very much in prominence around 1962, Kenya having recently attained independence from the British and the allegiance of the various African tribes, the ‘Mau Mau’ movement and Jomo Kenyata the prominent leader. Whew !! Still got it all right !! My memory holds ! And I shall never ever forget this at least, in my entire life !!

A job then finally at Bird & Co, in the Coal Department and my charismatic Director Mr Pran Prasad and my Dept Head Mr Neil Ghosh and my immediate colleague Chopra saheb, under whom I was meant to train. It was that endless routine every morning. Shirt, tie, desk in the office, looking officious, but no idea of where I was going. Sent off to the coal mines in and around Dhanbad and Asansol and a couple of months of living and observing grey and dark and treacherous mines, of workers living and working in sub human conditions, of tragic mine accidents, of the misery of those that lost loved ones. All so depressing and miserable. Many years later as Salim-Javed narrated ‘Kala Patthar’ to me, I gave them first hand inputs of my experience and they were incorporated in the film.

Back in office I look for greener pastures and get one. A smaller Company, Blacker’s, a freight broking concern, booking freight and cargo for clients - tea, jute, coal, cloth anything of volume. Meeting ship owner companies finding out their space and capacity and movement, writing bookings and feeling pleased with that, winning a couple of squash games for the Inter Company Championships, gin and lime lunches for clients, 8 of us at Clactons, the residential home for us - one room and one bathroom and breakfast, for Rs 300/-. My salary Rs 400/-. The shift to Blacker’s not with any direction in mind. Just the charm of having your own Company car and double the salary at Rs 1000/-.

But no direction and no path. Never saw any thing beyond that 9 to 5 and the Squash Club or later more interestingly the first benefits - amateur theatre. Looked forward to that every evening passionately, even when given an initial job of playing the sound effects back stage and pulling the curtains on time between acts. Then, ‘Death of a Salesman’, ‘Crime Passionnel’ by Jean Paul Sartre, ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’, ‘Waiting for Godot’, the musical ‘Desert Song’ and the line just goes on endlessly. Until … the contest from Filmfare Madhuri and the promise for a future film !! Something lit up. Suddenly a dimly lit road appeared far away in the horizon. Faint, almost unreachable. And I resigned my job. Bought some gifts from my Provident Fund for my parents lost half of them to a thief as I boarded train back to Delhi - back where it had all started from.

Almost 4 years in University, 7 years in Calcutta and in 1969 I see that path after 11 years !! And I walk on it and have been walking on it for my Madhushala ~ my House of Wine, my destination, my goal !! ~

हाथों में आने-आने में, हाय फिसल जाता प्याला ,
अधरों पर आने-आने में, हाय, ढुलक जाती हाला ;
दुनिया वालो, आकर मेरी किस्मत की खूबी देखो ,
रह-रह जाती है बस मुझको मिलते-मिलते मधुशाला

My cup filled with wine almost reaches my hand, but slips away

My cup filled with wine almost reaches my lips, but spills away

O people of the world come and witness the wonders of my kismet, my fate my destiny ;

I almost reach my Madhushala, but just keep falling short of it.

We strive each day to find our path in life, our goal. We travel on it to reach our preordained destination. But even when we feel that we have attained it, we must strive for a further destination. That will be our truest Madhushala !