 |
| Ochtorrnoley Hall, Neemuch |
After about eight months of training in various
offices I was asked to proceed to Neemuch, a town in western Madhya Pradesh.
Neemuch used to be in Gwalior State before the state of Madhya Bharat was
formed and later was merged in 1956 into Madhya Pradesh, a much bigger entity.
I had to go to Neemuch for on-the-job training as a head postmaster. It was supposed
to be a smaller head office with around ten sub offices and about twenty-odd
clerks and telegraphists. It was what was known as a Combined Office as it also
accepted, transmitted and delivered telegrams. It was in effect a Central Telegraph
Office (CTO) for the townsfolk as the telegraph traffic was insufficient to
justify an independent CTO. It was in true sense a post & telegraph office
of the Post & Telegraph Department.
It was a British era building that saw some
extensions on its two flanks. In one of the flanks the telegraph branch was
accommodated and in the other there were three rooms that were vacant and were
given to me to live out my two-month tenure.
Neemuch was a peculiar town with a cantonment
(chhavni), a bazaar area and the area around the railway station. Each was
located away from the other two in three different directions. In the middle of
them all was the Post & Telegraph Office and a very ancient looking club
house. It was quite a formidable building and must have seen better days
decades ago when the British were around. To me it looked haunted, more so at
night when everything would quieten down with an occasional distant bark of a
dog. At night it was frightening indeed with hardly any soul for some miles
around except a lone telegraphist at the other end of the building. The two
structures were literally in “splendid isolation” but during the day time the
P&T office would see a lot of hustle and bustle.
With opium
growing in abundance in the district Neemuch is stated to have Asia’s largest
Opium Alkaloid factory. Actually Neemuch today is a district town but back then
it was a tahsil of Mandsaur District. Mandsaur was always known for opium that
was grown all around in the district. Neemuch has another distinction. It was
the place where Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) came into being. Today it
is a formidable force being used against militants of Kashmir and the Naxals in
Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
My Neemuch office mostly had young boys with a
smattering of over-forty men. All of them were generally nice and were,
perhaps, extra nice to me as I too was young. They also were aware that I was superior
in rank to their superintendent who was based at Ujjain. They were helpful and
were eager to pass on their knowledge ungrudgingly to me.
They also took care I didn't feel bored. Two of
them one evening took me out for a movie in which Shashi Kapoor, now dead and
gone, was introduced. Its name doesn't readily come to my mind. On a Sunday
they organised a trip to Chittorgarh in Rajasthan. It was two hours away by the
metre gauge train that ran up to Ajmer. They carried with them delicious
home-cooked food with them. Chittorgarh Fort is of huge proportions and moving
around on foot made us all very tired. We sat inside a temple and consumed the
delicious stuff that they had brought On our way back we saw the descendents of
those who had left Chittorgarh after the legendary Rana Pratap was defeated by Emperor
Akbar, vowing never to return until the principality came back to its rightful
owner. It was Pandit Nehru who had them rounded up and brought them to their
own Chittorgarh Fort, homeless as they were.
There was another outing when Mr. Munshi, the
superintendent based at Ujjain, arrived for a routine visit. I had known him
for some time when he used to be superintendent at Bhopal. That must have been in
1959 or 1960. A very amiable person, he used to be fond of good things of life.
On a Sunday he asked me to join him for a picnic a little away from Neemuch on
a river bank. It was beautiful place, lush green with the gurgling river
flowing by. The person who took us to the site was known to Munshi. He was
carrying a 12 bore gun. The idea, apparently, was that this person, who was an
expert in shooting the fish as they surfaced, would catch some this way and
cook them over a fire raised with dry twigs. As it turned out the breeze
gathered in strength forcing the fish to avoid the surface. This also forced
our fishing expert to put aside his gun and use, instead, his fishing line and
baits etc. which he had thoughtfully brought with him. He did catch enough
small-sized fish for the requirements of three of us. The way he cooked the
spiced-up fish over the fire was fantastic. He brought all his Muslim culinary
expertise into play and provided us with a delectable repast out in the midst
of nature.
Before expiry of my two months term I was asked
to report to the Postal Training Centre at Saharanpur near Dehra Dun. The night
I was to catch the train the entire office staff said they would accompany me
to the railway station. I sent my luggage on a tonga and walked about three
kilometres to the station with the staff. It was quite a crowd that walked up
to the station. Two of the boys said they would accompany me to Ratlam, the
junction from where I was to catch the Dehra Dun mail for Saharanpur at dead of
the night. They did that with alacrity and that was a big relief for me. I
couldn’t thank them enough for their voluntary effort.
The word dead reminds me of the question one of
the staff members, Raman Lal Gor (yes, I still remember the name after 56
years), asked me whether I had any unusual experience in the room that I used
to stay in. I told him I did feel a presence in the room soon after I occupied
it - a kind of noise one makes when he breathes heavily. The night I heard it
for the first time it was strong or so loud that it woke me up. I got up and
looked out of the window, even went out on the street to check whether there
was anybody or a stray dog sleeping around. I went to the untenanted portion
and the dark area where the dry toilet was located but there was nobody around.
The place was as usual deathly quiet. Finding nothing unusual I came back and
switched off the light, went off to sleep. I was again woken up by the same
noise. This time I checked under the cot but there was nothing. When the same thing
repeated the third time I switched on the light finding it rather eerie and tried to sleep. Thereafter
I would keep the light on right through the night. I narrated this to Raman Lal
and then only he told me that the apparition of one earlier postmaster who had
died in that room was seen by post office workers one evening when they were
still at work. That I escaped without harm, I thought, was quite fortuitous.
Raman Lal added that till then none had come to any harm.
Neemuch was my first experience of working in an
office. And it was good and I felt good, more so because of the unreserved love
and affection extended to me so generously by the members of the staff. It was
such an auspicious beginning that somehow persisted right through my career
during which I collected a tremendous lot of love and affection especially from
the staff at the places that were reckoned as my field postings.
No comments:
Post a Comment