Network Past Issues

                                         Blind man’s bluff
Begging is both an art and a profession, as some adolescents found out... The tea vendor in Dehradun’s Paltan Bazaar thanked me thrice in his tinny voice as I dropped a five-rupee coin on his grazed palm. The face looked vaguely familiar. “Doesn’t he remind you of Lakkhu, Lakkhu the beggar?” asked my cousin ignoring her fiveyear- old’s tantrums as she pitched her voice high against the eddying traffic around us. The Clock Tower, the town’s enduring icon, freshly painted after the monsoons, seemed to bear down on the rushing populace.
How could one ever forget Lakkhu, especially his high-pitched ditty, his bedraggled hairstyle, and his hulking gait? And he had such a unique way of calling out to his patrons too. “Good sirs, pretty madams, this is your chance of redeeming your karma. Won’t you drop a couple of four annas into this blind man’s bowl? Please sirs, madams, don’t forget to oblige a blind man!” He would carol in a silly high-pitched note and gaze at passersby with his sightless eyes shielded by goggles as thick as culomnibus clouds. Sometimes he would weep nasally, tears rolling down his pinched cheeks, which set his large ears wagging for some reason. We would often find him sitting under the peepul tree next to my school in the afternoon after recess and after school hours.
A crouching pathetic figure he would block the entrance gates collecting his booty from exasperated parents who would tire of his whining sooner than the security guards appeared to personally escort him out of the premises. Scorn and derision appeared to vaporize off his swarthy skeletal back.
Where did he go during the evenings, I had enquired of my neighbour Alok, who now runs a school for the deaf and dumb.
“Odeon”, he replied. “We usually see him at the Odeon Cinema, first day first show.” First day, first show. A popular catchphrase with the youngsters those days.
The sole cinema hall in town to feature English films Odeon had become a trendy conclave for the Englishspeaking elite in town, which included the English-speaking school-goers. Alok and his friends would watch all the English blockbusters there, sometimes at great personal pain and sacrifice. For Saturday Night Fever the tickets had been bought well in advance and college skipped with prior consultation and planning. Disappointed crowds turned away protesting in a crescendo from the ticket windows had been soundly thrashed by the police. Even those who’d managed to buy tickets came under the hail of blows. One of Alok’s friends had been quick to brandish his press identity card to a heavily moustachioed firebrand constable who, stopping in his tracks as though hit by a boulder, had led the pack to safety inside the hall with a stern warning.
The Odeon cinema, which had been built by the British, was run by a fat Punjabi businessman who’d bought it from its original British owner. His equally fat Punjabi wife, everybody said, reeked of pickles and ghee-soaked parathas. The couple didn’t speak a word of English. Nonetheless, the cinema owned by them stood out as a symbol of elitism and snobbery. To be seen at the Odeon was having arrived in society. And if you had public school breeding and were able to flaunt a Doon Club membership card at the same time, you could turn up your nose at almost anything and get away with it. For a short while, the elitist Doon Club had begun admitting single women professionals including widows and divorcees. But these new members weren’t allowed to bring in guests like the regular members of the club. Nor were they allowed to take advantage of affiliated clubs in other cities. The clause gave rise to a few rumbles in the little valley town. Some elites, already members of the club and mostly males, objected that “the presence of single attractive ladies” would ruin the club’s “healthy, familylike atmosphere”. The young female section of the town objected rather vociferously to the club’s “ridiculous rules” stipulating that single women affirm their single status even in a distinct social milieu. Then there were some arrivistes who – sensing a quick social climbing opportunity – lost no time jumping on to the pseudo elitist bandwagon.
But none of this was bothering the younger generation that was more preoccupied with immediate goings-on, which included Lakkhu and his antics, not to mention the English blockbusters screened at the Odeon.
A chat-cum-tea vendor, with great wisdom and foresight, had set up his stall outside the cinema hall. His business flourished so that in later years he was able to build a swanky café in the heart of town. His chief clientele included the moviegoers, especially students who would be served tea and samosas at delectable c o n c e s s i o n s . Within a couple of years he was able to hire a team of workers who would serve the snacks and beverages inside the hall. But all that wasn’t to happen till later.
Not far from the stall, in the shade, sat Lakkhu the blind bedraggled beggar who didn’t have to exert any real effort in his trade. His earnings, concomitant with the movie’s popularity, would range from ten annas to ten rupees. Alok and his friends would be generous with their donations. The blind man, everybody knew, had lost his sight trying to save his family in a fire in his home in Malihabad in east UP. The fire had razed his home to the ground and claimed his wife and three children. His farm too had been destroyed. Lakkhu would sob uncontrollably while telling his story. Tears would fall from behind enormous dark glasses covering his unsighted eyes. He had been brought by his cousin to our hill town in search of work, which had eluded him so far due to his handicap. His cousin, too, had abandoned him. His story, whenever anyone cared to listen, would fetch him a windfall.
As for Alok and his friends, they couldn’t do enough for Lakkhu. They would buy him food whenever possible and become the r e c i p i e n t s of effusive b l e s s i n g s . “May you get whatever you want in this life good sirs… may you never want for anything… may you get a good government job, and may you have lots of children…” Bored of the litany, the young pack would quickly make itself scarce. What the blind couldn’t see couldn’t hurt them. The pitiable dishevelled figure in pyjamas of indeterminate colour would be seen whimpering to the winds till long afterwards.
After its last screening of the Saturday Night Fever the Odeon had closed down for renovations. It re-opened some three weeks later with a screening of Love Story to which the English-speaking populace rushed with frenzied vim. The trailer of a forthcoming movie - Enter the Dragon - was featured for once. This time even the Hindi-speaking public appeared enthused.
Alok’s pack had tried thrice to get the tickets without success. With two days left to go he was getting rather desperate. On the last but final day I heard him saying that he would buy the tickets in black if the need arose. Leaving early for the afternoon weekend show the pack cycled down to the cinema where it first approached the ticket-seller at the counter who politely informed them that the tickets had been sold out. He put up a board proclaiming HOUSE FULL as if to make his point. Unsure of what to do next, their first brush with criminality making them nervous, the three friends tentatively approached a bearded man with shifty eyes wearing a red T-shirt who pointed towards the stall. They stared, rubbed their eyes hard and then stared again. The blind beggar, hobbling in his worn white dhoti, was shouting at the top of his voice, “Balcony tickets for fifty! Any takers?”
A puny adolescent was pushing crisp currency notes into Lakkhu’s charred palms.
“What’s this?” The calloused hands pushed the thick goggles towards the back of the head. “Hey, you’ve handed me twenty. The ticket costs fifty rupees!”
“I thought you couldn’t see, you swine!” The puny adolescent displayed surprising strength as he pushed Lakkhu to the wall next to the chat vendor’s stall.
The fast thickening crowd was glaring menacingly at Lakkhu. “Let’s beat the stuffing out of this fraud!” a tall man was growling rolling up his sleeves. A thickset woman with grey hair and sharp grey eyes shrieked in perfect English, “Call the police, someone.
The rascal has been robbing the public blind,” unmindful of the pun.
The tall man with the rolled-up sleeves advanced towards Lakkhu who hastily gathered his earnings in a little sack and whimpered, “Don’t beat me sir!”
It didn’t sound like Lakkhu’s voice at all, noted Alok and his pack with some relief. “I am simply standing in for the real Lakkhu. He’s inside the hall watching the English movie …” 
                                                                                By: Indrani Talukdar