On persuasion of my friends, I joined J.C.I. again and was nominated President of the Bilaspur Chapter. I took this opportunity to improve my oratory and organizing capacity. Inducting new members, improvement in the standard quality of programs, introducing parliamentary procedure system in meetings, organizing personality development programs, preparing a financial base of the organization, urging members to attend meetings regularly and chalking out schemes for development of youth in the city were widely organized. I constituted a team with a missionary zeal along with the members and jumped into the cause.
It is meaningless to enumerate the programs we organized during the year but I am glad to report at least one positive outcome. The desire to do something outstanding, the frenzy for implementing a scheme and the delight after the success of a program were the feeling that the whole team experienced and those became memorable days of our lives which we shall never forget.
In my adolescence, I read the inspirational books by Dale Carnegie and Swett Marden and compared the environment of foreign with our social set up and was left in shock. In foreign, they inspired people to use their full potential to rise whereas our set up was such which left no stone unturned to push our will power down. The social and family attitude used to cripple and nip in the bud talents under a false impression that they were wise. They have nothing, a vain pride of being competent. In order to keep the family, business, property and the system under their thumb, the seniors made many lives miserable by destroying their potentialities for prospering and crushing them with a sense of inferiority complex
At JCI, the personality development programs resembled the path shown by Dale Carnegie and Swett Marden and I was inspired by it. I decided to learn the training techniques to infuse self-confidence in the lives of our youth and pledged to take them out from this mean environment, till my last breath. Now I had discovered the stage where my living was justified and learned the formula to do something different from being a traditional Halwai.
**********
One day I was greatly hurt by a prick comment of Daddaji and handed over the Pendrawala shop to my younger brother Rajkumar and began managing my own Madhu Chhaya Kendra where I used to sell televisions.
The arrival of television was a revolutionary event in Indians lives. Hearts of everyone used to throb with telecasts like Chitrahaar, Rangoli, Hum Log, Buniyad, Ye Jo Hai Zindagi. There used to be a feature film in the evening of every Sunday in addition to news bulletins in Hindi and English. This made all Indians to remain glued to it. Every home had a cinema. In addition, drama, songs and music, current events in India and abroad, live cricket match etc. proved to be genuine time pass which in the course of time turned into an addiction proving to be a time killer. No one could realize what kind of craze prevailed in them. The entire nation was drowned in the Tsunami of TV, one program or the other. One character or other used to dance on the tips of one. Ramanand Sagar, the producer of popular films Arzoo and Ankhen, produced a TV Serial on a popular epic, Ramayana. It claimed the life in every home for one hour between 9 to 10 at Sunday mornings into its web. As if the blood circulation of the whole nation was controlled by that serial. People used to remain spellbound for one hour. For the first time in my life, I came to realize what ‘spellbound’ meant.
Very few houses used to own a TV. Those who have found their homes converted into ‘mini theaters’. People of locality, men and women, young and old would assemble at that particular house. The hosts would make seating arrangements for the crowd. Very often they had to watch the program standing because every inch of the room used to be claimed by neighborhood spectators. In the beginning, people maintained courtesy, which later turned into hostility by repelling people. Those who were humiliated began planning to buy a TV set of their own. A black-white TV at that time used to cost Rs.3000 - 4000/- This was not a paltry sum for many low and middle-income group families. However, children would raise such a hue and cry that parents had to bow to their wishes and they would arrange finance by securing loans. Quite often people resorted to drastic cuts in household expenses, borrowing from relatives or even selling family ornaments. For the poor, it was still a distant dream. When 14” portable TVs were launched, they found good response because many families could manage Rs.2000/- for them to cater to their craze.
Being a new technology product it often used to run into the technical problem of one kind or the other because the manufacturers did not have a network of service centers nor would provide engineering assistance. There were few persons who can repair them in the city. These people were pampered and pleased. They were chased or ‘wooed’ like beautiful maids. Despite such hurdles, I had a steady sale of TVs, Specially Konark T.V. produced by Odisha Govt.
My TV business picked momentum. However, with heavy demand there began cut-throat competition. Meanwhile, we began settling in our new house. One day Madhuri suggested, “Change the house.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Kammu, our son Kuntal, has learnt the abusing. I don’t find this locality worth living.”
“O.K. let me find a new one.” I assured her. That very week we shifted to the house of a friend in Nehru Nagar. The house we left belonged to my friend Bhagwat Dubey, he did not charge any rent. The same thing happened in the new house. The owner of the house M.G.Tapas denied taking rent as he was transferred to Satna and I would be living in the house as a caretaker. Now, how long can one live in a house free of charge?
Now do not form an opinion, there are only a few people who are decent. After changing four houses I realized that to tolerate a landlord and his wife was an ordeal. If they reside in the adjacent portion or upstairs, they have hawks like the observation on a day to day living of tenants, times of arrival and departure of family members, visitors and their reasons for the visit. They maintain a vigil on everything you do, whether you laugh or you quarrel. There can be awkward situations. If their son thrashes yours, you have to ignore the matter or else, ‘You vacate the house’ looms large over your head. One thing that every tenant has to learn is never to fix a nail in the walls of a rented house. It pierces straight into landlord's heart.
As long as we resided in Daddaji’s house we were at ‘home’. During our tenancy days, we realized the importance of my own house. After sparsely living for few days in Gond para than Nehru Nagar, we shifted to my friend Gajanan Khangan’s house at Rajendra Nagar. This one was quite near to my shop. We used live upstairs. Our next door neighbor Mr. Khare had a pomegranate tree in his compound. Many branches were extended to our balcony.
One afternoon when I reached home I found my five-year-old son Kuntal extremely happy with two pomegranate fruit in each hand, beamingly he showed me. “Papa, Anar.”
“That’s nice. Who brought it?”
“I plucked them from our window. I could manage.” He was jubilant over his success.
“Come along with me, put on your slippers.”
“Where Papa?”
“No question, just follow me.” He followed my footsteps with the fruit in his hands to Mr. Khare’s home. I pressed the call bell. Mrs. Khare opened the door, “Welcome Agrawalji, why did you bother?”
“Kammu stole pomegranates from your trees, he has come to return them.”
“Stolen pomegranates, but how?”
“Stretching his hand from the bedroom window.”
“Doesn’t matter, he is a child, it is quite normal.”
“A child is not to practice stealing. Please take them back.” I pleaded with her asking Kuntal to apologize. He in panic could only say, “Sorry, Auntie.”
“It is injustice with child”, said distressed Mrs.Khare.
“It is O.K., Please send him a few off and on so that he doesn’t repeat the daring.” I suggested an option. After the incident, she used to send pomegranates for Kuntal from time to time.
Being fed up with rented house, I made up my mind to search a land for my house. A plot on an undeveloped colony on Link Road was finalized. It was purchased from working capital of the shop with the hope by the time we would secure sufficient fund for the construction of the house, the colony would be developed.
We were passing days in comfort as the sales were quite good. I enjoyed freedom from the clutches of the joint family. For me, it was a kind of double emancipation. Though it was peaceful it had its own challenges. I was bubbling with enthusiasm and self-confidence and was keen on doing something worthwhile. I did brisk sale devoting myself fully to shop. Our kids were growing and the atmosphere at home was free from all kinds of tensions. It was a life which we had been yearning for. But how long we had been longing for happiness!
The house owner asked me to vacate the house. I readily vacated it. The new house was in Vidya Nagar. Children were shifted to St. Joseph (Hindi Medium) school. They were average in studies and passed regularly. It was enough for us. We had a color TV and a VCR at our home, children liked watching movies, which was responsible for lots of time consumption. We never forbid them.
Kuntal was approaching the age of seven. Hence I decided to keep him away from gambling, I stopped playing cards. It is now a quarter century since I said goodbye to cards. (Seriatim)
It is meaningless to enumerate the programs we organized during the year but I am glad to report at least one positive outcome. The desire to do something outstanding, the frenzy for implementing a scheme and the delight after the success of a program were the feeling that the whole team experienced and those became memorable days of our lives which we shall never forget.
In my adolescence, I read the inspirational books by Dale Carnegie and Swett Marden and compared the environment of foreign with our social set up and was left in shock. In foreign, they inspired people to use their full potential to rise whereas our set up was such which left no stone unturned to push our will power down. The social and family attitude used to cripple and nip in the bud talents under a false impression that they were wise. They have nothing, a vain pride of being competent. In order to keep the family, business, property and the system under their thumb, the seniors made many lives miserable by destroying their potentialities for prospering and crushing them with a sense of inferiority complex
At JCI, the personality development programs resembled the path shown by Dale Carnegie and Swett Marden and I was inspired by it. I decided to learn the training techniques to infuse self-confidence in the lives of our youth and pledged to take them out from this mean environment, till my last breath. Now I had discovered the stage where my living was justified and learned the formula to do something different from being a traditional Halwai.
**********
One day I was greatly hurt by a prick comment of Daddaji and handed over the Pendrawala shop to my younger brother Rajkumar and began managing my own Madhu Chhaya Kendra where I used to sell televisions.
The arrival of television was a revolutionary event in Indians lives. Hearts of everyone used to throb with telecasts like Chitrahaar, Rangoli, Hum Log, Buniyad, Ye Jo Hai Zindagi. There used to be a feature film in the evening of every Sunday in addition to news bulletins in Hindi and English. This made all Indians to remain glued to it. Every home had a cinema. In addition, drama, songs and music, current events in India and abroad, live cricket match etc. proved to be genuine time pass which in the course of time turned into an addiction proving to be a time killer. No one could realize what kind of craze prevailed in them. The entire nation was drowned in the Tsunami of TV, one program or the other. One character or other used to dance on the tips of one. Ramanand Sagar, the producer of popular films Arzoo and Ankhen, produced a TV Serial on a popular epic, Ramayana. It claimed the life in every home for one hour between 9 to 10 at Sunday mornings into its web. As if the blood circulation of the whole nation was controlled by that serial. People used to remain spellbound for one hour. For the first time in my life, I came to realize what ‘spellbound’ meant.
Very few houses used to own a TV. Those who have found their homes converted into ‘mini theaters’. People of locality, men and women, young and old would assemble at that particular house. The hosts would make seating arrangements for the crowd. Very often they had to watch the program standing because every inch of the room used to be claimed by neighborhood spectators. In the beginning, people maintained courtesy, which later turned into hostility by repelling people. Those who were humiliated began planning to buy a TV set of their own. A black-white TV at that time used to cost Rs.3000 - 4000/- This was not a paltry sum for many low and middle-income group families. However, children would raise such a hue and cry that parents had to bow to their wishes and they would arrange finance by securing loans. Quite often people resorted to drastic cuts in household expenses, borrowing from relatives or even selling family ornaments. For the poor, it was still a distant dream. When 14” portable TVs were launched, they found good response because many families could manage Rs.2000/- for them to cater to their craze.
Being a new technology product it often used to run into the technical problem of one kind or the other because the manufacturers did not have a network of service centers nor would provide engineering assistance. There were few persons who can repair them in the city. These people were pampered and pleased. They were chased or ‘wooed’ like beautiful maids. Despite such hurdles, I had a steady sale of TVs, Specially Konark T.V. produced by Odisha Govt.
My TV business picked momentum. However, with heavy demand there began cut-throat competition. Meanwhile, we began settling in our new house. One day Madhuri suggested, “Change the house.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Kammu, our son Kuntal, has learnt the abusing. I don’t find this locality worth living.”
“O.K. let me find a new one.” I assured her. That very week we shifted to the house of a friend in Nehru Nagar. The house we left belonged to my friend Bhagwat Dubey, he did not charge any rent. The same thing happened in the new house. The owner of the house M.G.Tapas denied taking rent as he was transferred to Satna and I would be living in the house as a caretaker. Now, how long can one live in a house free of charge?
Now do not form an opinion, there are only a few people who are decent. After changing four houses I realized that to tolerate a landlord and his wife was an ordeal. If they reside in the adjacent portion or upstairs, they have hawks like the observation on a day to day living of tenants, times of arrival and departure of family members, visitors and their reasons for the visit. They maintain a vigil on everything you do, whether you laugh or you quarrel. There can be awkward situations. If their son thrashes yours, you have to ignore the matter or else, ‘You vacate the house’ looms large over your head. One thing that every tenant has to learn is never to fix a nail in the walls of a rented house. It pierces straight into landlord's heart.
As long as we resided in Daddaji’s house we were at ‘home’. During our tenancy days, we realized the importance of my own house. After sparsely living for few days in Gond para than Nehru Nagar, we shifted to my friend Gajanan Khangan’s house at Rajendra Nagar. This one was quite near to my shop. We used live upstairs. Our next door neighbor Mr. Khare had a pomegranate tree in his compound. Many branches were extended to our balcony.
One afternoon when I reached home I found my five-year-old son Kuntal extremely happy with two pomegranate fruit in each hand, beamingly he showed me. “Papa, Anar.”
“That’s nice. Who brought it?”
“I plucked them from our window. I could manage.” He was jubilant over his success.
“Come along with me, put on your slippers.”
“Where Papa?”
“No question, just follow me.” He followed my footsteps with the fruit in his hands to Mr. Khare’s home. I pressed the call bell. Mrs. Khare opened the door, “Welcome Agrawalji, why did you bother?”
“Kammu stole pomegranates from your trees, he has come to return them.”
“Stolen pomegranates, but how?”
“Stretching his hand from the bedroom window.”
“Doesn’t matter, he is a child, it is quite normal.”
“A child is not to practice stealing. Please take them back.” I pleaded with her asking Kuntal to apologize. He in panic could only say, “Sorry, Auntie.”
“It is injustice with child”, said distressed Mrs.Khare.
“It is O.K., Please send him a few off and on so that he doesn’t repeat the daring.” I suggested an option. After the incident, she used to send pomegranates for Kuntal from time to time.
Being fed up with rented house, I made up my mind to search a land for my house. A plot on an undeveloped colony on Link Road was finalized. It was purchased from working capital of the shop with the hope by the time we would secure sufficient fund for the construction of the house, the colony would be developed.
We were passing days in comfort as the sales were quite good. I enjoyed freedom from the clutches of the joint family. For me, it was a kind of double emancipation. Though it was peaceful it had its own challenges. I was bubbling with enthusiasm and self-confidence and was keen on doing something worthwhile. I did brisk sale devoting myself fully to shop. Our kids were growing and the atmosphere at home was free from all kinds of tensions. It was a life which we had been yearning for. But how long we had been longing for happiness!
The house owner asked me to vacate the house. I readily vacated it. The new house was in Vidya Nagar. Children were shifted to St. Joseph (Hindi Medium) school. They were average in studies and passed regularly. It was enough for us. We had a color TV and a VCR at our home, children liked watching movies, which was responsible for lots of time consumption. We never forbid them.
Kuntal was approaching the age of seven. Hence I decided to keep him away from gambling, I stopped playing cards. It is now a quarter century since I said goodbye to cards. (Seriatim)
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