PRAMOD MEHTA

 Pramod Mehta The incorrigible friend I last met in 1969 or thereabouts. Tall (not a six-footer like me, though), handsome, with his deceptively innocent good looks,  fluent talker who could charm his many friends and acquaintances.  Women  found him irresistible. His peccadilloes with some of them tended to land me, his constant companion during those heady days, in trouble while he himself walked away smiling mischievously, with me holding the baby as it were, pardon the mixed metaphor. 

This promises to be a longish post, but before I proceed further with the story, will Mr Pramod S Mehta, please come forward and let me know where  he is today, is he still in Canada where he moved in the1960s? This is a desperate call to him, as I have failed in my attempts so far to trace him. 

I first met Pramod at Vivekananda College, Mylapore, where we both did our Pre-University Course in the1963-’64 academic year. Weremained in touch over the next few years, but the period from 1966 to 1970—before he left India for Canada—was when we spent a great deal of time together, often at the Adyar Library inside the vast grounds of the Theosophical Society. This is where I discovered a priceless collection of crime fiction donated by J Krishnamurti amidst all the great works of literature and the rare manuscripts of ancient eastern wisdom most of the international visitors there came to pore over in the rarest silences I had come across. Pramod was a prolific reader, too, but he also found the time to befriend—and charm—some of the many women who descended on Adyar as delegates to the annual Convention of the TS. One of them, an older woman, was so impressed with Pramod’s wit, intelligence and intellect that she took him along with her on an overseas trip.

Let me fast forward to end 1968. I had discontinued my MA at Presidency College midway through my first year to be with my parents who were both ill in Calcutta. By the time they were better, it was too late me for me to go back to college. With my father’s help, I even joined Rajasthan Club to play in the local cricket league, doing well enough to be regarded as a Bengal prospect in the Ranji Trophy in the foreseeable future. But just when it seemed Calcutta would be my permanent home, my college teammates and our Physical Director prevailed on the principal to waive my attendance requirements and allow me to rejoin college in the second year, carrying the three first year papers I had missed. The fact that I had captained the college team for two seasons and hadn’t done too badly academically helped.

Back in Madras and tasked with finding a tenant for our house—with parents and sisters away in Calcutta—I had the unmitigated pleasure of Pramod’s company as he moved into our house with me. With a couple of months to go before college reopened, I was an unwitting accomplice, and often unsuspecting victim of the constant flow of pranks my friend conjured up. To give you the most spectacular sample, we both saw a morning show at Blue Diamond--part of arguably India’s first multiplex—the continuous performance theatre you could enter and leave at any time you liked, watching the same movie repeatedly for the price of one show.

We left Blue Diamond around 1 pm when Pramod said, “Do you want to see The Guns of San Sebastian starring Anthony Quinn at Anand (another Mount Road cinema)?” I said I had only two rupees in my pocket, barely enough for the bus fare home. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” he assured me. He then marched us to a nearby PCO, from where he called his friend Shanti, a fellow Gujarati. “Shanti, you are treating my friend Ram and me to this matinee show at Anand. And you are bringing another girl with you.”

To say I was stunned by the turn of events would be an understatement. Shanti and her friend Nimmi, a pretty young girl just out of school, actually took us to the movie. Normally shy, I was even more tongue-tied than usual. To make things even more challenging, Pramod, now encouraged by his success, introduced me to the ladies as an impoverished poet from Calcutta now in Chennai in search of a job so that I would not die of starvation. I looked the part all right, with my days-old stubble, unkempt hair and crumpled kurta-pyjamas. Caught off-guard, I looked straight ahead at the screen avoiding any sideways glances at my neighbour. Nimmi then dropped a bombshell during the interval, asking me to recite one of my poems. Desperate to get out of the situation, I managed to recall some lines from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, mainly because the late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had been fond of quoting from it the line: “I have promises to keep…And miles to go before I sleep.” Nimmi gave no sign of recognising the poem, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

College reopened a month later—our house had been let out to Australian born Jim Foley, a jockey and trainer who spent a few years in Madras—and I entered its portals with great excitement and anticipation. And guess whom I run into first thing? Nimmi! Shocked beyond words, she asked: “What are you doing here?” I blurted out that with my job-search yielding no results, my parents had forced me to go back to studies. I knew of course that she would before long find out I was in II MA, not in the first year, but I had survived the present crisis.

The worst was yet to come. Not only was Nimmi a BA English Literature joinee, she was a classmate and close friend of Gowri, now my wife of 56 years. Sure enough, she warned Gowri against me as soon as she found out that the two of us were seeing each other. What touching faith Gowri must have had in me not to heed her best friend’s warning!

Here is a shoutout to both Pramod and Nimmi, wherever you are.