Two calls to remember

Raaja Bhasin

IN the years before the mobile phone became an appendage to our bodies and its brand became a benchmark of success or otherwise, I answered a ring on the landline. The gentleman at the other end asked for my father. I requested him to hold the line and asked who I was speaking to. In Punjabi, he replied, ‘I’m Inder speaking.’ My father came on the line and for the next half-hour or so, there was animated conversation with much laughter. When it was over, I asked who that was. With a smile my father replied, ‘The Prime Minister.’

My father and the late Prime Minister, Inder Kumar Gujral, had been contemporaries at a college in Lahore. While serving in that high office, he was staying at the Retreat near Shimla and had called. In terms of recognisable status, both were far removed, one headed the world’s largest democracy and the other had been a teacher. There was no secretary who called first and Mr Gujral had held the line for the few minutes that it took my father to get there. 

The other call that I’ll never forget (again before the body extension of the mobile phone) was on a Sunday morning. This time, the caller speaking in Hindi wanted so ask about something I had written in one of my books. The conversation began with trying to establish the identity (and my supposed error) of the same house, ‘The Retreat’. The better known one lies on the town’s outskirts and is with the President of India. Another, not as well known, but with the same name, is in Shimla. This is the appointment house of the GOC-in-C of the Army Training Command. For a while, the latter was not called ‘The Retreat’ after the Western Command arrived in Shimla and General Thimayya became the GOC-in-C. The General felt that the name ‘Retreat’ was not appropriate for a soldier and the place was simply called Command House.

From the bit on the Retreat we advanced to writing, literature and poetry in general and to my involvement with heritage and theatre. A while later, the conversation ended and the gentleman said, ‘Whenever you are in Chandigarh, you must meet me.’ I had not even asked the name and did so then. ‘I’m Bansi Lal,’ and the phone went dead. As far as I knew, there could have been a thousand persons with the same name in Chandigarh.

Within a minute, Rajendra Aggarwal of Shimla’s well-known book store, Minerva Book House, called to say that Bansi Lal, then Chief Minister of Haryana, had bought some of my work and would probably call. 

He already had.