97. A Prank That She Enjoyed!

Thousand Moon: Shrimati Prabhavati Narayan Deshmukh

Contributed By: Dr. Raghunath Boradkar

Shrimati Prabhavati Narayan Deshmukh will be completing 90 years on the coming 10th February 2014. She lives in Amaravati with her daughter. She had a passion for education and saw to it that all her daughters were educated.

She narrated a small funny incident that looks more like a prank that she enjoyed. As she says she must have been about six or seven years old then. They used to visit their grandparent’s house during the summer vacation.

She remembers that there was a lady there who was bent at the waist to almost 90 degrees. She used to work in the house. As a child and that too mischievous in nature she placed a bowl on her back when she was working. The woman probably did not know or maybe she ignored and went on working. The bowl did not fall off her back as she had expected. She says she also got a queer idea that her back could be used as a table top. On this she had a hearty laugh and was amused and felt good. She says she still remembers the whole episode and it still lightens her face.

96. Our family physician prescribed Ice-cream for me!

 

Thousand Moon:  Shri Yashwant Ganesh Jadhav

Contributed By: Dr Raghunath Boradkar

Shri Yashwant Ganesh Jadhav is 83 plus. He is a retired forest officer and lives in Pune. He has set up a Bio diversity park and a land restoration project on 100 acres of land near Hinjewadi,  the well known  IT hub of Pune. Every Saturday he drives down to the place and looks after it.

On week days he looks after his sons  Software office management in Pune.

On asking what he considers the most memorable event in his life, he pondered over the question and took some time wondering and then came up with this small incident that made him happy and gave him the feeling of being on the top of the world.

I think everyone will enjoy this.  

His words....

I was 10 years old and had a very bad cough. It was diagnosed as Whooping Cough. My parents consulted our family physician and he prescribed Ice-cream for me. I was given Ice-Cream to eat but all my siblings and cousins were forbidden to eat. They were so jealous of me that I enjoyed looking at their faces .  Poor fellows they did’nt get to eat the ice-cream and I felt I was on  the top of the world.

Yashwant Ganesh Jadhav

After reading this I felt why do we not have physicians like this anymore?

95. Teaching the women to read and write

Thousand Full Moon: Shrimati Shanta Ram Gokhale

Contributed By: Nandu

Shrimati Shanta Gokhale (81+) hails from Pune. Eldest of the four siblings and a Daddy’s girl, she has four daughters who are all well settled with their respective families. She lives in Pune and keeps busy with reading and writing about the ancient Indian scriptures. Some of her works have been published in the well-known Marathi magazine, Prasad. She was married to the late Shri. Ram Gokhale, a decorated officer of the Indian Army. Since she married very early, she had to put her education on hold, however, she pursued it again after her daughters started going to school. She also earned a sangeet visharad degree in Hindustani Classical music in her early sixties after her husband passed away.

Military postings took her to many different places in India and abroad. She recollected that she was recognized as a distinguished ballroom dancer couple in a celebrity party while she was in England with her husband. As I spoke to her in the presence of her daughters, I could see the joy that transpired there, as they all were collectively enjoying and reminiscing about the good old days. Shanta Gokhale’s daughters were pleasantly surprised to learn that doll making was one of her hobbies when the girls were very young and that she was quite skilled at it.

Shanta Gokhale had embraced the military culture fully, and frequently found herself in a leadership role that she fulfilled to the best of her abilities. The following incident was narrated by her with enthusiasm and fondness.

Once during war time,  she was sitting at a gathering of  military wives. The talk of men on the border and the best ways to support them was the topic of conversation. She put forth her thoughts saying that in the letters written to the men, the women should not write about their worries and troubles but instead should only write about positive, uplifting things. When she looked around for response from the ladies, she was surprised to find some of them very sad and tearful. Upon asking what the matter was, she was informed that most of the women did not know how to read or write. Shanta Gokhale stepped up to the plate and started conducting reading and writing classes for these women on a regular basis. The informal school continued for a year but she had to stop when her husband got transferred to a different station. She considers this one of her accomplishments and is very proud of it. Later, when she visited them on her way to another base, she was pleased to find that many of the ladies had improved on their reading writing abilities and were thankful for her initiative.

94. THE MOST MEMORABLE FOUR MINUTES…………..

Thousand Moon: Shri Ravindra Palkar

Contributed by: Dr. Raghunath Boradkar

Shri Ravindra Palkar is 82 plus. He loves hindi film music and especially likes old film songs.His favourite singers are K L Saigal, Pankaj Mulick and Manna Dey. I  think I should better quote him here,and these are his words. ‘My age is 82 and along with my childhood friends ,I enjoyed singers like Saigal,Pankaj MalikManna Dey and many others  and still enjoy.’

Here he narrates what he calls the  ‘ Most memorable four minutes’ in his life and also pays tribute to the great singer late Shri Manna Dey.

Shri Ravindra Palkar stays in Kothrud Pune.

And now his actual  writeup.

THE MOST MEMORABLE FOUR MINUTES…………..

Born Prabodhchandra Day but famous as Manna Dey or Manna Da to all music lovers left  this world at the age of 94 on 24^th October 2013. The news crowded my mind with tunes of his sad, classical, peppy and romantic songs. Manna  Da sang Bhajans as well as westernized songs and I feel he sang comedy songs in classical form.He sang Marathi Natya sangit too ,but it was his song Dharati kahe Pukarake from Do Bigha Jamin that made him famous nationally.

Two or three years back a Musical programme was held at Ganesh Kala Krida Manch  Pune where Manna Da presented a number of solo songs and a few duets with a local singer Mrs Mategaonkar . I was fortunate enough to attend the programme. I witnessed that the crowd was thoroughly enjoying the programme.

During the interval I requested the organizers of the programme for my personal meeting with Manna Da ! And my luck! I could meet him only for four minutes but those were the most memorable four minutes for me. After paying respect to him ,I requested him to sing a song from New Theatre’s Devdas .He asked me ‘Who has sung that song?’. I replied ‘Late K C Dey has sung it.’ K C Dey means Krishna Chandra Dey who was Manna Da’s uncle. He appreciated my choice but asked me to excuse saying ‘My uncle K C Dey was the right person to sing that song’. He shook hands with me and expressed his inability to sing that song. I saluted him and while going out requested him to sing the very famous song ‘Ai Meri Johar Jabi’ from ‘Wakt’ and to my pleasure he sang the song . I enjoyed the rest of the programme.

I was overwhelmed with joy and speechless for some time. While going home I kept thinking ‘Was it a dream or Reality?’ The magnificent thing about the evening was.that I could shake hands with the legendary playback singer of Indian Cinema. Manna Dey has sung more than 4000 songs. His songs haunted me so much that I did not know when I slept that night. ‘ Hasane ki chahne Kitna muze Rulaya Hai’ from ;Avishkar’ ‘Puchho na kaise maine rain bitayee’ from ‘Meri surat Teri Ankhe’ and ;Lapak chhapak tu are Badarva’from ‘Boot Polish’ are a few of his songs that are very close to my heart due to the heartbreaking sadness and naughtiness expressed by them. People will remember Manna Dey for years together because  HE HAS VERY SUCCESSFULLY CROSSED THE BRIDGE BETWEEN THE CLASSICAL AND FOLK SONGS.   MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PEACE.

Ravindra Palkar

93. First Posting Abroad Paves Way to Continue In Service

Thousand Full Moon: P N Ramachandran

Contributed by: P N Ramachandran

I joined government service first in Tamil Nadu State Secretariat and then I was transferred to the IFS (Indian Foreign Service B). We had to alternately serve at the headquarters of the Ministry of External Affairs in the Central Secretariat, New Delhi and then at the Indian Embassy abroad to which we might be posted.

My first posting abroad was at Addis Ababa. Ethiopia was then quite friendly with India. During that posting there was armed rebellion by the Crown Prince against the Emperor Haile Selassie (much milder than the later one which made the country into a Republic), earth tremors etc. The Ambassador was from one of India's princely families. He had faced civil wars in his other postings abroad and so he even enjoyed the rebellion at Addis Ababa. However he became extremely nervous at the earth tremors. The Ambassador's residence also developed mild damage then. The Embassy provided tents for the Ambassador and all the officials. The Ambassador and his wife were sleeping in the tent in the garden at their residence. I had to keep company for him; so I slept in another tent with my family in that compound. We found another residence and shifted the Ambassador thereto. He left Ethiopia soon after but his successor stated that that the residence was not convenient! These are the pin-pricks in smaller Embassies abroad! In all we had comparatively speaking a good time in that country and enjoyed our stay there. Due to nearness to the Equator or some such reason there was shortage of oxygen in the atmosphere. We were advised to leave the City (which is on a plateau) and go down to other places once in 6 weeks at least. It was pleasant to leave the uniformly cold city and enjoy the warmer climate outside. Thanks and best wishes

P N Ramachandran