Hailey Road Stories

Here are more Hailey Road Chronicles by my uncle, Livinder Singh.

The rooms were made empty only when they had to be painted. And that went on for ever as the plaster was bad and they never waited for the putty to be dry.

So I started by trying to remember the names of the people who have been in the house- service staff and others.

The oldest other than Bhoori ahya, Laxmidhar the waterproofing man with long thin legs. The girls wanted him no where near the school bus stop. He was from Orrisa. I recall he used to get Rs. 30.00

There was Sher Singh, the works clerk, A mistri with white turban- mason. He lived near the end of Panchkaun Road, Rami the Phulwala- fruit man with six fingers and toes. Whenever he was weighing the fruit he used his sixth finger to tilt the scales. We needed to help him to load the fruit basket on his bald head. Shanker ki ma- that old witch looking person. Shanker who said after the 1984 riots about Vikram- how did you escape? Before Shanker ki ma, there was Heera and Panna, their old father I don’t remember his name, Ramesh and Shaku had Sunder and Girdhari, Do you remember the Tonga which was parked with Sher Singh.? Pinjra Pole ki dairy which used to have a horse cart ringing its foot bell at 4 pm for milk. The 5 hailey Road dood wali with her Bhains at the back of the house.

Amongst the visiting marvels were the people who shouted in the middle lane- a singer with a small Ik tara (single string) with bow singing Bum bma bum on top of his voice, I think he was those wandering bauls from Bengal. A man who roamed around with a cow with a leg popping out from the hump, the toy wala with lots and lots of small toys for a few paisa each, the baiscope wala in which you had a peep hole view from the six sides with him singing. There was a nude there and he called it the whore- we didn’t know what that meant, the kalai kara lo- tinning of brass utensils- he set us his fire with charcoal and a blower. The bartan (pot ) was heated, rubbed with cotton waste and soda to take out the grime and a touch of a tin rod and it was silver again. As we had no rope beds, the khat bana do was not very relevant.

Can you remember any more?