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Birds of Many Feathers

July 1969. I was all of twenty years old, in M.A. (Prev.); there
would be girls in class! The last time I was a co-ed, I was in kindergarten. Can’t
say I was excited about the prospect. I had never been too comfortable around
girls, alluring as some of them had undoubtedly appeared to be, from time to
time in my life. I had always given them a wide berth—more or less. Men
changed, sometimes beyond recognition, when females entered the picture; the
break-up of our motorcycle gang had confirmed that. They were trouble with a
capital ‘T’.
The Arts Faculty in Delhi University is a sprawling, redbrick
building that goes well with the colonial architecture of Lutyens’ Delhi. I was
determined from Day One to make a better showing academically than in B.A.
History (Hons.), but I ran into a problem I’d never anticipated. The classrooms
in the Arts Faculty are designed to accommodate at least a hundred students, and
it is only a professor with a voice like Stentor who can be heard in the
backbenches…which was where I found myself. Due to some inane convention,
girls occupied the first three of four rows, with the men occupying the
backbenches after leaving a ‘decent’ gap of a few vacant rows. I didn’t find any
problem with that, except that I could hardly hear what the Profs were saying.
Frustrating, to say the least. Especially when it came to ‘Political Thought’.
Palti Menon had tipped me off that Dr. Randhir Singh’s lectures
were so good that every word was worth taking down. Palti was a topper, so his
advice could not be taken lightly. The standard book in ‘Pol Thought’ (as it was
irreverently called) was by Sabine, with Wayper’s (from the ‘Teach Yourself’
series) excellent book serving as an introduction to the subject. Reading this
book whetted my appetite for the subject…but I couldn’t quite catch everything
that the renowned Dr. Randhir Singh was saying, in his smooth, cultured voice.
Highly off-putting!
So one day, on a sudden impulse, and hardly believing what I
was doing, I found myself sitting in lonely splendor right in the center of the
second row. I just wanted a chance to hear what Dr. Randhir Singh was going to
say and to take down notes verbatim. That was my only motivation. I could
never have foreseen the consequences of this rush of blood to the head. I soon
found myself surrounded by a sea of feminity. There was color all around me.
To my nostrils, unaccustomed to perfume, wafted a hundred fragrances. I did
not find it too distracting: it was worth it to get up this close to the podium.
There were disbelieving titters from my former fellow-
backbenchers. I think they were stunned. I had not given anyone the slightest
inkling of what I was going to do; in fact, I didn’t even know myself that I was
going to take this bold step. It was a snap decision. Many guys were probably
kicking themselves now for not having taken the initiative themselves; I was
almost certain that one or two of the blokes had plans for some of the girls, and I
had to admit to myself that quite a few specimens were enticing enough to be
worth an all-out campaign, if one was so inclined.
As for the girls themselves, I think my gambit took them by
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surprise, yet I think they were relieved when the ‘long-overdue move’ (which is
how I’m sure they interpreted it) came, taking it at face value as an attempt to
break the ice before it became too thick; they were certainly in a flutter at the
unexpectedness of it. I’m sure they expected such a move, sooner or later, but
from the more adventurous guys, not from a quiet, plain-looking chap like me. I
could sense the tension in the ‘girl’s section’ where I found myself…it was
obvious that my presence had triggered off intense curiosity as to the
significance of this opening move in the inevitable ‘boy-meets-girl’ game. Was I
a sacrificial goat, a ‘Sapper’ sent to clear a way through the minefield of boy-
girl relations that this gambit promised to open up? Or was I an unlikely
Lothario with a specific ‘prize’ in mind?
The Parker ‘21’ that Dad had given me when I was in Class XI
was still with me, its nib now broadened from its original ‘fine’ rating to
‘medium’ (it’s edging towards a ‘broad’ now, as no doubt the present user, my
son Rahul, now twenty-eight and married, is himself doing!). The matchless
Parker nib hardly ever touches the paper it glides over; it rides on a film of ink
that cushions it from the writing surface. The speed at which I wrote was
entirely due to this peerless instrument. This is what caught the eye of the two
girls sitting on either side of me, for they complimented me on it (as well as my
handwriting: very generously, I thought) after the class. On checking my notes,
they found I had managed to transcribe practically every word of what the great
Dr. Randhir Singh had uttered. I said I was merely following the advice of my
friend Palti Menon. They were impressed: “You mean S.N. Menon?” “That’s
him,” I admitted. The conversation took us to the Coffee House, from where we
returned for the next lecture.
Things were very relaxed now. I glanced over at Purnima’s
notebook, and found she had been spelling the name of one personage as
“Allcott.” I drew her attention to the misspelling...it could cost her marks, later
on. “That’s ‘Allcock, not ‘Allcott’”, I whispered. The ‘information’ traveled
smoothly down the row of girls, to other rows. I marveled at their unity, their
willingness to help each other. Inexplicably, minutes later, waves of giggles
went rippling up and down the girl’s rows. I was mystified as to the cause of this
sudden mirth. Several years were to pass before I managed to put two and two
together, cracking the conundrum of the giggling girls. Ah, those far-off,
halcyon times, when my days went before me like a golden trail leading to an
unknown El Dorado shining beyond the curve of an unfamiliar horizon!
I never came to know whether the girls accepted my gambit as a
bold move to open up a front, or took it as an innocent attempt to get on with my
studies. I like to think that they, so much more worldly wise, as girls always are
as compared to men, took me for what I was: an oafish, naïve, Hill-Billy: a
‘buddhu’, as I believe girls then referred (and perhaps do even now) to a male
not too clued-up on the smoke-signals that convey the coded messages of the old
game of ‘boy-meets-girl’. Who could have guessed that two decades later, this
same buffoon, returning bloody but unbowed from the wars of the sexes, would
write a hard-hitting primer on sexual politics based on evolutionary evidences?
In any case, I could guess that many of them knew (Eve! she is
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always at hand to tip them off, to help them wrest the advantage from the out-
gunned male) that it was only a matter of time before their circle of male
acquaintances widened. As we have seen happen in ‘Tap Tunes In’, I had
emerged as an unexpectedly rich ‘resource’. Sure enough, many guys suddenly
found me very good company. I was plied with – you guessed it – food! (How
Tap, now a silent spectator, must have envied me!) I was not hard to guess the
reason for this sudden surge in my popularity, and I’m afraid I shamelessly
milked the situation for what it was worth, for after the introductions were over,
I would see very little of these ‘large-hearted’ gentlemen and their largesse.
And so it came to pass that within a fortnight of my
‘breakthrough’, a dozen members of each opposing sex (here, I request all those
who object to the use of the word ‘opposing’, to feel at liberty to replace it with
‘opposite’, which does not, however, convey quite the same meaning) were now
regulars at the Coffee House, ye olde rendezvous for romance. Today, sadder
but wiser, I maintain that the sexes are, as intended by nature, destined to exist
in a state of controlled natural animosity towards each other, an uneasy truce
being always forthcoming, from time to time, for the purpose of perpetuation of
the human race.
The male and the female are different (“Vivá la difference!”
exult the poor, misguided Gallics, “Vivá l’amour!”) species, evolving
through totally different evolutionary paths that appear identical when not
subjected to careful analysis. Superficially the same, men and women are
actually quite different animals, programmed differently and marching to
entirely different drummers in the blood. The physiology, psychology, goals,
immediate objectives, way of thinking, motivations, if examined from
paleobotanical and paleoanthropological perspectives of women—meaning we
go back three billion years and start from there—are completely different from,
and usually opposed to, those of men. I managed to rein-in my wayward
instincts that threatened to surface from time to time, and watched as the others
got going with the mating dance. I hoped I’d be able to resist the call of the
blood, for I was all of twenty now, and the tide was unusually strong that year.
There was this enchanting specimen of Dravidian beauty, but she
was destined for a much grander station in life. I am happy that she chose the
traditional path to matrimony, for I saw the hand of Providence behind it. When
I did, at long last, get to meet the Girl of my Dreams, it was far too late; the
springtime of youth, that was as lava in my veins, had become a wintry autumn,
and my blood was cooling rapidly in preparation for the Ages. It has to be
another time, another place, honeybaby…I will wait for eons, if need be, for get
her I finally shall.
I had always been lucky at cards, and I intuitively felt that I
would never be lucky in matters of the heart. But, to my (yes, I swear it) delight,
my comrades were not so accursed. One, in particular, had made what I thought
was a grand choice…or had she chosen him, I often wondered? She was from
Miranda House, that ravishing, doe-eyed maiden who looked up into his face
with such adoration. He was a manly fellow indeed, tall, bronzed by the sun, and
blessed with gladiator-like good looks. He had a handsome, open face, a ready
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laugh and crinkling eyes full of humor and intelligence. For centuries, men like
him had stoutly resisted wave after wave of invaders from the north, but he went
down like a pole-axed steer after a single glimpse of this beautiful maiden.
Sensing, as young lovers always can, who was for them and who
was against, they often had me accompany them on little picnics, as chaperone
and bodyguard (for I knew well how to use a shotgun), and after we had stuffed
ourselves, I would wander off for a hour or two, leaving them alone with their
great love, and returning, escort them, flushed and happy, to their vehicle. On
these outings, I would row a crude country boat with sixteen-foot bamboo oars
some miles upriver. The Yamuna is a stinking, polluted drain today, but ihe
times I speak of it was broad, rolling river that offered a good oarsman a chanve
to work up a good sweat, eveb in a clumsy country craft. I was a sturdy lad,
handy with a boat even as large as this one, and it was not too much of an effort
for me to row us over to a distant sand-bar in mid-stream that I’d seen earlier
during a duck shoot. There I left them after lunch, skimming across to the left
bank for a chance to think and stretch my legs.
The fields were under pea and gram, and here and there, a small
clump of sugarcane gave relief to the eye against the monotony of green that
stretched to the horizon. On one such occasion, I was startled when, with an
explosive clatter of wings, a big male Black Partridge erupted from under my
very feet (as these well-camouflaged birds so often do) and, quickly gaining
height, swung away in its characteristic yawing, dipping flight to glide to earth
about a hundred yards away.
This happened many times during my walk in the fields, and as I
returned to the boat, I realized I had stumbled upon a great secret: this close to
home, apparently unsuspected, was a partridge hunting spot that was the best I’d
ever seen. The peas were ripening, the partridge were fat and over-confident and
did not fly too far, normally seeking shelter in a patch of sugarcane till the
danger had passed. I filed the information away for future reference. Soon, these
fields would echo to the thunder of a .12 bore shotgun…but that’s another story!

Subroto
 Mukerji 