We had checked into a guestroom towards the end of a pathway in the club founded in 1863, Meerut Cantonment. A clean room with a creaky bed & a dark, large bathroom. An ancient tree overlooking the veranda. Nonetheless, we settled our luggage there and quickly walked up to the dining room to meet our relatives. My wife & I were there, to attend a cousin’s wedding. The day before the wedding was much quieter, with guests trickling in from the other parts of Uttar Pradesh. We had a long lunch of daal, chicken curry, rice & rasgullas for dessert with our relatives. We drove in from Gurgaon, a fairly long drive, and GPS was not in vougue in 2010, so took many wrong turns on the way, even though the Autowallah in Ghaziabad had categorically told us “Sidha sidha chale jaao, aagle 50 km tak highway ko mat chhedna.” Both of us were hungry and sleepy. After exchanging a few pleasantries with the family, we retired to our room. A strange vibration in the bed woke us up, I decided to ignore and my wife placed a small copy of Hanuman Chalisa under her large pillow. We slept fitfully for about an hour and was back in the dining room for tea and some gossip. My wife and her sisters were due for a beauty treatment in a local salon and they left for the parlor in a while. I took a long stroll of the Cantonment area and came back to the club by evening. It was a very hot summer that year. It was a weekend too. The lawn was a short walk from our room along the pathway. The army families started occupying their tables with the children happily running around and playing hind and seek. The waiters started serving drinks, clad in their old uniforms with stains of gravy & red wine.
He was the oldest of All, a full head of grey hair, a relatively cleaner uniform, and a warm smile. He welcomed me with a huge salute, and couple of other officers got up from their seats and nodded at me. Surprised, I took a table near the bar, all alone. I was about to order, while the waiter appeared with a frosted beer mug and a chilled beer already poured in it, he also had a small bowl of peanut masala on his waiting tray, my favorite snack with a drink. I looked at the beer bottle, my favorite brand once again. I realized one thing suddenly, all the officers were wearing shoes in the lawn and I was the only one in a pair of strappy leather sandals, while a humble sign near the entrance had read, ‘no slippers & sneakers allowed inside the lawn.’ The waiter saw me hiding my feet under the tablecloth and grinned, ‘MajorSaab, aap befikar rahiye, koi kuchh nahin kahega.’ I gulped down my beer while munching on the spicy peanuts and asked him, ‘do you know me?’ He said, ‘Sir aap kya mazak kar rahe hain, paanch saal baad hi sahi, wohi lehja, wohi chaal, wohi Nakhlavi zubaan, wohi adatein, kaise bhool sakte hain aap ko?’ I took out my wallet, he held my hand. ‘Sir, I’ll write down in your account.’ Enough of this, I thought. Took out a hundred rupee note, and slipped in his palm. He laughed his heart out, saying that he had even recognized the way I had folded the crisp currency note and handed over to him. It was already dark, before I could see him evaporate in front of my eyes (like in one of those stories straight out of a ghost stories omnibus), I got up, left the lawn and hurried to my room. I didn’t look back, obviously. Then I saw the large, dilapidated signage to my right, ‘FOR OFFICERS ONLY.’
arunprakashray 