VA YA CON DIOS!
By Go PalAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Go Pal
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4634-3980-4 Chapter One
"My Canny Nanni!"
I was born on July 1st. 1926 in India's Northwest, in the Punjab (The land of Panch = five +AB = Rivers), in the village of Badhni "Kalan" (Out of interest, The present Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom was born same year, in April 1926.)
There were no hospitals within 20 miles. The midwife would travel to the expectant mother's house, to help with the delivery using any timely transportation available. In emergency a messenger had to search and fetch any available midwife, if at all possible.
However in case of a rush delivery the expectant mother would be taken to the facility of the midwife, as and when possible. Following modes of transport were available in those days,
I) Bullock cart - a crawling and rocking contraption pulled by a bull or buffalo! or
II) A bone-shaker "Tonga" -a Horse Cart
Both of which were unsuitable for transporting a lady, ready to deliver a child.
Actually what happened was that with the jerks and heavy shake- ups of the rickety horse cart on the rough and uneven and unpaved dirt road to the hospital, I was born en-route in a nearby bush.
So as usual I came into this world unassisted, and continued to face unusual incidents throughout my life as a self-starter, self made man had to!
In many ways I learnt the Life's Lessons through the Lens of Time, and because of it, I think I am a lucky guy.
FUNNY STORY OF MY REAL BIRTHDAY
I used July 1st 1926 as my birthday for the next 52 years.
In the year 1965 I had reached the top of my career with Burmah Shell Oil Company. There were rumors of layoffs. I applied for a Green Card to migrate to USA, and White Cards to 4 provinces of Canada. I was awarded all of them in a short order.
However on the eve of the dinner given by my Shell Boss to celebrate my being selected to head the BURMAH OIL COMPANY I met a beautiful girl outside the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay. She was offering her body for ten rupees ($0.25). I paid her just to listen to her life story. She was the only child of a multimillionaire American, and was under the influence of Hippies. She was convinced that she would get happiness through Transcendental Meditation in India. That plus the advice from the Counsel General of USA, who was my close friend and co-director on the Board of the Breach candy Hospital, dissuaded me from going to USA, especially when my daughters were at the impressionable ages of 7 and 9 years. I probably became the only Indian who had the guts to turn down the Green Card as well as all the White cards for Canada. Twelve years later in 1977 when Indira Gandhi was taking the country to Totalitarianism, my friend, the Counsel General of USA prompted me, to migrate. He arranged all my papers fast and got my actual Green Card delivered to me at the entry point. The application needed the official translation of my birth certificate from Urdu to English. The Official Municipal document showed the date of filing as July 2nd, 1926, but the translator made a mistake and recorded July 3rd, 1926. Since 1977 I have used that as my birthday.
All my friends tease me saying that I gave BIRTH TO THIS NATION ON JULY FOURTH.
"IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RAISE A CHILD."
I remember my grand uncle taking me out for walks (while I was perched up on his shoulders), enjoying plucking wild berries from treetops. I did try to avoid finger-pricking thorns sometimes- learning nature's lesson in self-preservation! Earlier, however I braved these pricks at the tender age of 4 years, but my grandma thrashed my grand uncle for being so irresponsible.
Here I would like to clarify that my real grandparents died when my mother was few years old and she was brought up by one of her aunts.
This lady was a spinster, and she adopted me the day I was born. So far as I am concerned she was always my, Canny Nanni, very smart Grand Ma! As to my grand uncle he was married to my grand mother's other sister, who had passed away. They were seven of them, bless them!
Next day my Grand uncle took me to a local garden full of rose bushes and sat me down where he could see me.
He taught me to differentiate the good from the dangerous. He told me where there are roses there are thorns. This has stuck in my mind and I am always analytical-not to judge a book by its cover, a rose by its delicate frontal beauty or Houdini's super-speedy shuffle-"Now you see! Now you don't." He taught me to handle those beauties with care, so that I do not get pricked by the thorns that guard the delicate petals of the roses from intruders like me.
He told me to use similar precautions when plucking sweet berries, while riding atop his shoulders, where he could not see my mistakes! Boy did I learn fast!
"In Nature, actions and reactions are continuous.
Everything is connected with everything else.
Not one part, nothing, is isolated.
Everything is linked, and interdependent."
I used to love the clean open air, green fields and the Mother Nature opening her arms and the little snippets of the village history taught by my grand uncle!
I learned that:
"Greed is evil. Happiness and contentment with what you have, obtained through your own hard work and intellect, is the joy of your Life, and above all there is the Almighty guiding you."
I was always happy and grateful for my little possessions and stayed away from habit-forming distractions. Kabir the poet wrote in Hindi which when translated means "Be satisfied with a piece of dry bread and a fresh water from the well, than be jealous of the neighbor's Parathas (buttered, creamy tortillas) and their rich and luxurious life style."
These crude but great principles came in handy and helped me ride over the rough waves dealt to me as I passed through the rough seas of my life.
One beautiful morning we went for a walk in the small track full of a variety of trees.
He stopped under a Neem (Azadirachta indica) tree whose trunk exudes a tenacious gum and has a bitter bark used as a tonic and whose fruit and seeds yield medicinal aromatic oil.
By then I was almost old enough to learn to brush my teeth. I was trained to break a small 6-inch long twig of the Neem tree, wash and chew thus the liquid I swallowed exuded chemicals as well as formed a small toothbrush at its end. This was called Dattun, which is derived from the Urdu word Daant, meaning teeth!
The beauty of this process was that I got the natures best toothbrush and toothpaste all built-in one and available in abundance.
Brushing teeth inhaling fresh air and walking which I did a lot as I grew up were good for the teeth, lungs and health all around!
When I became older we used to go out with a gang of friends and pull out the fresh gum from several tree barks and learnt to use it in many ways. We experimented in making little toys! We also developed the art of making Indian Ink, from gum collected from special trees. Long walks, hard work, chores of farming, ploughing were some of the things, which helped, build close friendship between a few of us kids.
One day our long walks ended up in a small field of sugar canes. This was a hardy crop of thick shell, heavily knotted &fra34; to 1-inch diameter, and 4 to 6 ft. long.
You really needed very strong sharp teeth to peel off these shells and further bite a...
