Memoirs of a Lost World- 6

The ‘Hansa’ flew and Friends

During my posting in Bengal, on my visit to the District Judge’s office of one of the districts I saw that our law teacher Prof. Dada Banerjee had been posted there long back. I wonder what could be the reason that he joined Academics when he would have reached the High Court at least. But people make choices in profession and in their lives which they alone know better.

But in Mussourie I was more worried about my horses and had left it upon life to monitor my learning under its careful supervision. And that evening I was again trying to improve my riding skills and there was a golden opportunity. We were moving to another huge sports ground (where our sports events used to take place). The instructors were interested in taking us there as the March past during the sports meet were held there.

The route was also beautiful- we passed through a Buddhist School and monastery with thousands of small colourful flags on its top. Then we had to take a u-turn on a mountain turn where the horse shoes were slipping on slippery stone-road. As the space was less we had to move the horses on the outer edge of the road and just on the right was a deep valley. We were told to keep the horse pressed from the right by our right leg so that even by mistake it doesn’t make a movement on that side. This was a sensational and I felt a feeling of fear.

Then as we entered the huge field we were taught the ‘next gear’ of the horse and that was ‘CANTER’. Since Trotting was an uncomfortable, bouncy and slow movement, we were eager to learn something about this faster movement. The trainers demonstrated to us a stepping in which the rider does not have to rise and sit with every footstep of the horse (so much relaxation for the thighs). The movement was what we had been waiting to learn all these days because this actually was the ‘run’ or ‘race’ of the horse.

We were also told that the next gear would be ‘galloping’ where the horse moves at maximum speed. The cantor probably was slower but it still made the horse and its rider a pleasure to watch as they ‘flew’. But none of the Officer trainees could make the horse walk in the right gear that day, for which all of us and our trainers were disappointed.

On the way back, I could notice that my horse ‘Hansa’ was eager to say something to me. As the trainer in front of me again made his horse to ‘Canter’, I being second in the group also tried to put Hansa on cantering pace. Somehow the horse (the best one in Academy, I believe) which had been unable to coordinate with my instructions whole evening got it right this time. I could feel his feet movement change, it accelerated drastically, the bouncy trotting had stopped. I didn’t need to lift my body again and again and as I could feel the ‘weightlessness’ Hansa gradually began to soar on the steep upward slope.

And as Hansa was speeding on the slope, vigorously moving and jerking his head, I knew that he was enjoying himself. What I was realizing is that either I could stay saddled or even if I rose on my feet in the stirrup, the body remained balanced. And was it my excitement or the chill air coming in my face or the ‘Ahir’ in me, I stood in the stirrup with my knee bending (you feel it, the correct positioning, nothing can be taught) and the torso bent forward as I felt that was safest for me and fastest for my horse.

The first two horses cantered all the way to the riding field. Once the whole group was back, our second Master trainer who was next to I in the array was very happy, as he told Hansa had a perfect canter run. Their training had been successful. And it was then he told me that I was standing in the stirrup. And when I asked if it was wrong, he said that it was text book perfect because the horse was climbing the slope and then the shifting of the body weight to the shoulder of the horse makes the horse comfortable to carry the rider. And thus the super fast speed generated by Hansa. I went to the stable of the horses to leave my horse back that evening. I fed him with ‘jaggery’ by my own hands, removed the saddle and the stirrups and the horse was all sweating and so was I in that Mussourie winter.

Finally I came back running, excitedly climbing steep slopes of ‘kachha’ hill tracks until I reached the Computer Centre. And I was so delighted that instead of going to my room for a bath, I ran to our ‘common room’. In the evening so many people used to sit and play carom or chess or just listen to music in the common room and I wanted to tell mt friends about my evening ride. There I was attracted by a large group where a palmist in our batch was reading the palm of a beautiful young lady.

Most of the lady OTs used to wear Salwar suits or Sarees in the classes and on the campus. But the lady whose palm was being read was one of those rare persons who had a much ‘bindaas’ dress code and attitude. And the palmist was reading just that as I could make out, ‘An outright extrovert’, ‘You want to make a lot of friends’, ‘Not hassled by what the world says’, ‘A very worldly lady with little space for emotions in your life’, etc. The lady was smiling and nodding her head slowly in affirmation every time and all the viewers cheering the palmist and his predictions, some shouting to be the next for getting their palm read next.

I think I should have kept quite that day and moved away from that place and should have taken a bath. But I ended up saying that all that was said there was seeing the face of the lady and not her palm. The lady burst into a giggle and had immediately moved her palm towards me. I had said very limited things and they are fresh in my memory as ever, first the lady should have problems with her eye sight, second she was extremely emotional and would actually find it very difficult to express her feelings in life and third (probably) she was ‘Sad’.

The reasons were easy to explain, an island on heart line under the Sun finger (eye problem), Head and life line connected to half the palm’s width (very sensitive person, dependent on others) and Saturn finger bent over the Sun finger giving the melancholy feelings.

The lady had stopped wearing the contact lens from the next day and wore spectacles. Her dress code had changed and over the next some sessions, she had so much more to ask me and tell me. She told she was a member of a religious group to which her family belonged, and about the bindings on marriage outside the group, and about the ‘friends’ whom we trust at some point of time.

But, then, palmistry was a skill cultivated by me due to my mercurial curiosity for every thing unknown. I was myself discovering secrets of life. I learnt that people are not what they look on the face value, they NEVER are. One should always be patient in life to discover the realities of life, as they are always exposed sooner than later. Friends often turn out different from our expectations and it is better to develop friendships slowly. I was discovering that ladies are more vulnerable than men and the smarter ones are most vulnerable. However they refuse to accept it in the beginning and no one can teach others, only life does. May be people who showed their palms to me had specific queries and were not generalizations but over the years I have come across such cases in life very frequently.

And I had started rediscovering myself. As for me till then ‘Academics had been extracurricular activity and rest everything was fun’. But people were beginning to look at me with a lot of expectation. And their belief was forcing me to seriousness and sensitiveness, where I was expected to offer more than shear excitement on the sports field.