My time as a student of one of north India’s penal boarding schools was defined, overwhelmingly, by hunger. I literally starved. The unappetising nature of the food at my institution was matched by the puny portions we received.
We’d wait for the chance to visit other schools, where we were exposed to oddities like chickens with actual breasts and legs. In certain schools — in Punjab, naturally — the kids had their choice of meat or veg, at every meal! Forget girls, this is what we dreamt of. Instead of dal lobia, watery tori and a pitiful pudding that called itself ‘shahi tukda’. What we wanted was a bowl each of mutton curry and paneer, and time to treat them right.
We did what we could, sneaking rotis down from the dining hall, reheating them with ghee over makeshift electric rings, eating them with aloo sabzi dispensed by a life-saving gentleman who was allowed into the boys’ side of the campus a few times a week. We called him Charley.
“Charley” of course was the name given to the post, which was filled by a succession of contractors. But I remember him as one conglomerate man, a kindly chap pushing a bicycle bearing bansams, literally a samosa inside a bun, with some chutney — we were so easy to please — and bondas and basic sweets. Those visits by Charley punctuated our weeks.
Ask any old lag from the old place about Charley, and see the smile spread across his or her face. There are so many things to remember from those days, little triumphs and piffling defeats. Good teachers and bad, friends I still depend upon, moments that started me on the road to now. I’ve forgotten so much, inevitably. It was a long time ago.
But I still remember Charley.
There are other food memories from that time. In those days, before Ambala cantonment was something under a highway overpass, buses would line up outside its dhabas. There were two that stood out, at least to the drivers of our school buses. One was Deluxe; the other was Puran Singh’s. Its highway advertisements, which featured a rooster saying “Meet me anywhere, but eat me here”, were as popular as the birds it served. Now there are quite a few Puran Singhs, all busily claiming to be the original, even as the vast majority of buses and cars whizz over on the elevated road.
If the school party was on a train, we all made for that other thing Ambala was famous for, the badaam milk on Platform 1. In that more leisured era, no matter which platform your train was on, you knew you could make it over, guzzle a few bottles, and be back in time before the train left. Now, with fidgety Shatabdis and the like, I wonder how that kiosk does.
Once you started up the hill from Kalka, there were dhabas galore at the bus stand, around the railway station, and further up at Pinjore and Parwanoo. There were men pushing cut fruit and coconut through the windows, and masala nimbu soda in buckets. Now there’s a bypass, and many buses don’t even call at those towns any longer.
In Dhalli was a pickle-maker, renowned for his masalas and meats of uncertain provenance. Now his recipes are on YouTube. Every time I pass by, I can’t tell the original from the usurpers on either side.
Up where the buses turned towards the school lay Giani da Dhaba. In “my time”, it was a modest place. The Shimla highway wasn’t trafficked so heavily, and he closed early. You stood outside and shouted his name and he’d come grumbling down and fire up the kitchen.
I heard he started using the “meet me anywhere… ” meme on his posters; that he was serving alcohol; that people were using his brand name in places like Bengaluru — finally, that he was closing. So it goes...
You had to be a certain sort of outlaw, or prey to a debilitating hunger, to make it all the way down to Giani’s from school, a distance of some four kilometres, at least part of which lay through a graveyard. A shorter option was busting bounds to Lala’s, a modest shop run by the eponymous gent, which dispensed eggs, parathas and tea. His establishment lay just outside the gates, so the risk of meeting a hungry master there was very real, but it was a gauntlet we gladly ran.
A few years ago, I stopped by Lala’s for tea and a chat. I asked after his son, who’d been a very young boy helping his dad around the shop. He was married, he told me proudly. Lala was a grandfather. It struck me then that this wizened old man wasn’t really that much older than myself. Hard work and responsibility had bent him prematurely, and the arrogance of extreme youth had made the difference of a few years seem a chasm. Now, well: what’s a decade here or there when you’re 45?
When you finally drive into school, up a crippling hill, the old quartermaster store is to the left, where Charley — in his various iterations — had his lair. The last time I visited, I confess I didn’t have the time to stop and pass the time of day with the current Charley — if there is one.
I wish I had. But would he care, this new Charley, about my maudlin memories of birthdays marked with neon jalebis? Generations of old boys and girls who pass through these portals on waves of nostalgia have probably bent his ear the same way. Why would my tale be any different?
Is he paid enough to listen?
Better that I tell it here, then, and leave a request. If you read this and then go uphill, for Founders, to see a child, for whatever reason...
If Charley still exists, ask him his name.
It would mean a lot.
Sunday Recipe
Authentic hill bansam
(Serves one)
Prep time: 30 seconds.
Ingredients:
One common or garden variety samosa. Hot if available, but cold will do.
One heaping helping of imli chutney.
One dodgy bun.
Preparation:
Cut bun in half.
Mash samosa onto bun.
Drown in imli chutney.
Close bun.
Eat.
Pro tip: Imagine eating while running away from a monkey who likes bansams as much as you do.
(An edited version of this story appeared in print.)
The author’s last novel was Necropolis . He lives with his wife, son, and singing dog in Beijing.
