After returning from work pretty late a little while ago, I got
my hands on a much cherished and coveted book awaited since long, Autobiography
of Ruskin Bond which is just published, 'Lone Fox Dancing'!! As I didn't have
enough time and energy to start reading with it, went ahead to browse through
its pages as a general practice, the Epilogue, Prologue, Dedications,
Publisher's Note... I was saddened and shocked to read through the first few
lines of the Epilogue titled 'A Son of India'.
Being familiar to Ruskin Bond through his writings and having
loved this Anglo Indian author of British Descent, a Padma Bhushan awardee,
while considering him to be much more an Indian than millions of other average
Indians by birth, the below lines penned down by him as an experience gathered
while visiting Hindu temples in Odisha, India last year, did for a moment make
me feel sad and upset about the narrow minded practises by followers of
religion in my country. It did for a moment make me feel ashamed of my country,
certain wrongful practices of my religion by birth, especially encountered by
someone like Ruskin Bond whose heart and soul has been dedicated to India,
precisely to the Hills of Dehradun and Mussoorie...
"Last year Rakesh and Beena accompanied me to Bhubaneshwar,
and from there we went on to Konark and Puri. In Puri they visited the Jaganath
temple. I was not allowed inside. So I sat in the car for almost three hours,
reading a fascinating book on Oriya history by J.P. Das.
At Konark I was told I was a 'foreigner' and had to pay the
extra entry fee. Standing behind me was a Sikh gentleman with a British
passport, who was allowed in as an 'Indian'. Rakesh and Beena protested, saying
I was as Indian as the banyan tree outside, but the gatekeeper was not convinced.
'Nothing to fuss about', I said, and paid the foreigners ' enhanced fee.
The Sikh gentleman asked me where I'd been born and I told him
Kasauli, which at the time was part of the Sikh State of Patiala, later
amalgamated with East Punjab and now Himachal Pradesh. 'And where were you
born?' I asked. 'Birmingham', he said."
What a pitiful irony and undue treatment indeed...
7/6/2017
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