History- His story!

"What is your favourite subject ?" asked the inquisitive, elderly gentleman in the BEST bus. For a school boy, it was like being asked to choose between bitter-gourd and neem leaves! All the subjects were equally revolting; but in the circumstances, it appeared preferable to go with the least obnoxious one. "Well, History actually!" I answered quite truthfully. The gentleman's genial expression morphed into a scowl and he clicked his tongue in disapproval- "How can you choose History ? Tsch! Tsch! Mathematics is the queen of Sciences. Every Science has to dust the feet of Mathematics." Mercifully, I was spared a lengthy discourse on Mathematics and its curative powers to solve world hunger since it was time to get down at the bus stop and run to school. History continued to be my favourite subject despite my run-ins with Mathematics fanatics.

My marriage was on the rocks in a very short time when we failed to maintain any flow in conversation. "There is this story about the Pandyas of Madurai...." Usha began, when I interjected. "I thought Pandas existed in the mountains of China. Didn't know that the bear can be found in Madurai as well!" It was an innocent comment which started a whole round of questioning. Wide eyed, my wife was aghast. "I meant Pandyas, not pandas! You mean you've never heard of the Pandyas?" "Not really. In Mumbai, when someone cuts the lane and we need to pick on him in a rather friendly way, we typically start with Aye Pandu or Aye Pandya! But not in any other context, I'm afraid." "How about the Pallavas ?" was the next question. "Of course, we all had a crush on Pallavi Joshi... her family, I guess," I added, with a little wink which didn't go well either. "How about the Cholas ?" "You mean the Hotel... Chola Sheraton in Chennai ?" "The Cheras?" "What are they ?...chelas ?" "The Chalukyas ?" "The chalu who?" "The Rashtrakutas?" "Were they from Maharashtra?" "The Kings of Vijayanagara?" "Amar Chitra Katha had a story on Tenali Rama..." I began, only to be cut short. "Did you even go to school ?" It was resembling the deep anguish that the Princess of Ujjain suffered when it dawned upon her that a quirk of fate had got her married to Kalidasa, a confirmed dullard in his earlier avatar.
Exasperated, Usha finally asked, "What do you know ?"
I rose to my full height. Like Shashi Kapoor in that famous tete a tete with Amitabh Bachchan in the classic Deewar, I calmly looked her in the eye and replied, "I know Shivaji". There was an uneasy silence.

The tables were now turned.  It was now my turn. "I hope you're aware of Dadaji Kondeo". Usha hadn't heard me fully. "Surely, we all know Dadabhai Nowroji," she began, when I snapped, "Not Dadabhai Nowroji silly! He was an old man! I'm talking about Dadaji, Dadaji, Dadaji Kondeo," as if Usha was hard of hearing in addition to being oblivious about basic History! My wife hadn't heard about Shivaji's mentor. It was an elementary question as far as I was concerned. "How about the Temple of Raireshwar ?" was my follow-up query. "We can't go to all the temples built by Aishwarya Rai's family! We have bigger temples in Triplicane and Kanchipuram." The reply was a dampener and my lower jaw dropped. Even "boarders" like Wayne in my class would have answered that question. Everyone knew that Shivaji took his famous oath of swaraj in the precincts of that temple. "The fort is captured, but the ...." I left the sentence hanging, but no one completed it. Even in a comatose state, a student from Maharashtra would have answered, "but the lion is dead", in obvious reference to the famous battle of Sinhagad when Tanaji, Shivaji's commander took on the might of the Mughals but laid down his life. If the quote was unknown, there was no way my wife would know anything about the  monitor lizard "Yeshwanti" which was used to scale the fort. It looked as if Men were from Mars and Women from Venus and they had read History about two completely different planets.
Evidently, not much progress could be made. We had to abandon History as a binding cord between us and move onto other topics where we were hopefully better matched.

The Maharashtra State Board History syllabus had a simple vision. Instead of cluttering the student's already over-burdened mind with historical facts from across the country and the globe, they believed that it would be in the student's interest to study something relevant and closer to home, in detail. Little wonder, that by the time we completed school, we were well on our way towards earning a PhD on Shivaji. Our introduction to Shivaji was in the fourth grade through a History textbook which had a story-like, simple narrative and brilliant water-colour illustations. Every year, a few more details were added to the basic storyline so that slowly, but surely, Shivaji's persona captivated us. When we played at the Bosco grounds, we pretended we were mavlas (Shivaji's soldiers) and mounted "gorilla attacks" on each other. (It was much later in life that I understood that it was actually guerilla.) When we enacted plays, it was about Shivaji and his compassion for the milkmaid Heera. If it was a Fancy Dress competition, there would be at least half a dozen Shivajis (those who could successfully procure a beard at the costume shop). The rest, who couldn't find a beard, wore the same dress but called themselves Sambhaji (Shivaji's young son)! If we had a heated debate between friends and wanted to end the argument by accepting the other person's viewpoint, we typically said "Tu Shivaji!" (Loosely translated: I accept that you are Shivaji. You win! I don't have anything more to say!)
To put it simply, History was His story, Shivaji's story, full-stop!

No wonder, we felt it was perfectly natural that the engineering college VJTI (Victoria Jublee Technical Institute) in Mumbai should be referred to as "Veer Jijamata Technical Institute", in memory of Shivaji's mother Jijabai. Also, the railway station VT (Victoria Terminus) required a new acronym CST (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus). The only downside was that just saying Shivaji as a destination to the taxiwala was not adequate anymore. He could take you anywhere from the Cricket pitches at Shivaji Park to the International Airport (again Chhatrapati Shivaji) or to the train terminus! One had to be really sure that he took you to the appropriate Shivaji.

The wheels of time spun away relentlessly and I lost touch with History and Shivaji.

A year ago, we had the opportunity to attend a spelling-bee competition with our daughter at Delhi. I was seated in the audience beside a hyper-active school boy. He was from Pune and in the fourth-grade. I could not resist a question. "What are you studying in History?" "Shivaji," pat came the answer. "Uttam! Uttam! Ati uttam!" I couldn't control myself. "And what are you learning about Shivaji ?" The spelling bee rounds were in progress and it would have been difficult for the child to give an elaborate answer. But he did. The boy held his palms out as a tiger would its clawed paws. Next, he made a little gesture as if he was ripping something apart.
That mudra said it all - Shivaji's famous encounter with Afzal Khan, a David versus Goliath episode, where Shivaji deftly used tiger claws to slay the opponent with his bare hands. Through this simple non-verbal communication, the boy and I connected! History was still in safe hands! I told his grandmother that he was a bright child who would surely go places. The grandmother beamed with genuine pride!

P.S: Note on pronunciation: Kondeo should not be pronounced as "Kon-duo", but as "Kon-dev". In Maharashtra, the "V" sound is closer to the "W" so that the word "dev" would end with the lips pouted (as in W) rather than biting ones lips (as in V) . The letter "O" is used in "deo" (instead of dev) to account for a sound which thus has overtones of  "V,W and O". The reader may want to pay attention to this detail though I'm sure I've confused him enough!