Growing up in Kanpur

 

A Tribute to Paripoorna Nand Verma

 

Laxmi Rattan Cotton Mills officers colony in Kanpur would seem a dilapidated compound now but when we were growing up there it was full of fun, love and affection. Looking back I do not think it would have been such a grand place, located across the Mills on GT-Kalpi Road, but in my memories it reigns supreme as one of the best places in the world. As an adult I realize now that people who lived there made that place special.

Most special amongst them was an elderly, septuagenarian gentleman named Shri Paripoorna Nand Verma. Babaji, as all the kids called him, was a towering literary and political figure of those times. A freedom fighter and an authority on Hindi Literature, Babaji was the younger brother of  Dr Sampoorna Nand Verma, the Chief Minister of UP.

 

Babaji was looked upon with great respect and admiration by old and young alike. Our house was separated from his by just a hedge, and we would often hear Babaji’s typewriter click deep into the night. A man of principles and strict discipline, Babaji was always working. I remember my mother often telling us not to make noise around the garden if we saw the lights in Babaji’s study.

 

I do not recall ever having a conversation with him but I do remember that he had a name for all the kids of the colony. I was his Mausi, Gudiya, another one was his Dadi  and then there were lots of Chachas, Tais and Mamis. What made him special to the kids was the fact that he gave us plenty of comics to read. Fresh from the press, those hindi comics opened up a whole new world for us. Amar Chitra Kathas, Phantoms, Mandrake, Chacha Chaudharys….we were allowed to read as many as we could as long as we returned those books in two days in the same condition as we had taken them. Gudiya, the eight year old Dadi was the librarian and would issue those books to us.

Every other day we would line up in the evening across his dimly lit study under scrutinizing glare of Nehru, Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri hung on the walls telling us to behave and be good.

For years we did that. Read books and more books. For years we saw Babaji amble about in his garden under the blooming Har Singar tree always doing something important.  Those were good days and those were good people. I wish that my children also have the good fortune of meeting and interacting with people like Baba ji.