Berhampur and Slumdog Millionaire!!

Berhampur and Slumdog Millionaire!! ..... I bet you are wondering what one has to do with the other? I did not know there was a connection until I went and watched the movie. Just like millions of people around the world I also watched on Oscar Night, as the movie took one award after another. My son, Sreyas and I wondered what made that movie so good! We decided to watch it the following weekend. I had heard and read a little bit about the movie but little did I know that one particular scene in that movie would unleash the memories of one long ago evening. Memories that I had pushed way back into the recesses of my mind!!

As most of you on this blog by now know, I was living in the corner house on Church Road in Berhampur. It was a gigantic house. The floor plan was such that if one was in any of the the back rooms of the house (like the kitchen) one would not know what was transpiring in the front rooms of the house. My father was a lecturer at Khallikote College and also a Captain in the NCC. Being a captain in the NCC had perks that came along. He had quite a few peons working for him, on NCC related stuff and they would be in and out of our house doing this and that for my father. We kids got used to them being around all the time. On occasion, one would even drop/pick us up from school. Life was all fun and games and 'no worries' for me, until NOVEMBER 1st, 1968.

November 1st dawned like any other day. Based on the events that unfolded I must have either not gone to school that day, or it was a Sunday. It was however, a festive day in our house. You see that day was a festival day, a festival called "Tulsi Vivaham'. I don't remember the details of the festival but it is a day when devotees celebrate the 'vivah' of Tulsi with Vishnu and the pooja is performed in the evening. It must have been a big deal in our household because I remember my sisters and I were all dressed up in good clothes, my Mom had put special 'kolam (rangoli)' in front of the house and in front of the Tulsi mandap. She was making special sweets and dishes for the occasion and so, was pretty much cooped up in the kitchen (in the back of the house) along with my second sister who was helping her. As the morning wore on my Mom would find that she was missing this item or the other for making a certain dish and would send me packing to "Keertono's" store to buy them for her. I must have gone in and out of the house that day at least four or five times. As a kid I was only too happy to oblige my Mom, because that gave me a chance to be outside. Thus, I spent the whole day just goofing off and running errands for my Mom.

'Keertono's' store was where we exclusively shopped for produce. My dad and his best friend 'Gupta Uncle' had a ritual every day, where Gupta Uncle would come to our house around 4:30 pm, my mother would hand my father THE 'Karigai Pai', (which means 'vegetable bag' in Tamil), they would then walk to 'Keertono kottu', together to buy the vegetables and other items needed for the following day. Sometimes I would accompany them also. That evening, however, was slightly different. Gupta uncle arrived at our house at the usual time, but my father was not ready. He was all agitated and angry because he could not find THE KARIGAI PAI that he always took with him. He searched high and low for it and when he could not find it he left in a huff, with a different bag. I asked him if I could go with him, but my father was so angry that he told my older sister and I "Find the bag by the time I come back from the store", and left. After my father left we all searched for the bag and eventually found it. My mother and second sister went back to the kitchen, my older sister went back to whatever she was doing in the front room and I went back to playing.

About half hour after my father left for the store, we heard a knock on our front door. My older sister opened the door and found a man standing at the door. He told my sister "I met your father at 'Keertono kottu' with Guptagaru. He told me that he had some extra things to carry and needed another bag. I was coming this way so he asked me to tell you that I should bring your younger sister with the normal bag that he always takes". Like I mentioned before we kids were used to seeing guys coming to our house all the time, so my sister handed me the bag and told me to go with the man. Given that my father refused to take me with him I was only too excited to go. The man had come on a bike, so I got on the bike and off we went to "Keertono Kottu" to see my father, or SO I THOUGHT!!!!

Having gone to 'Keertono kottu', umpteen times that day I knew exactly how to get to the store. The man was headed that way so I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. However, as we got near the store I realized that he was not slowing down. I glanced towards the store and noticed that neither my father nor Gupta uncle were there. I mentioned to the man that we had just passed Keertono's store and questioned him as to why we were not stopping there. He then told me that my father and Gupta uncle have gone to Rao Uncle's home.

Rao uncle was another friend of my father's who owned a huge house outside the city limits of Berhampur. There were not too many other homes around his since they had a lot of land around their home. I had visited their home once to attend their son's birthday party. They had a big garden filled with all kinds of fruit trees. A cyclone had recently hit Berhampur and a lot of Rao uncle's fruit trees had fallen. The man told me that my father ran into Rao uncle at the store. He had gone with Rao uncle to get some banana's and that is why he needed the extra bag. I remembered my father telling my mother that Rao uncle was giving away banana's because they were all going waste . By this time we were riding away from Berhampur and I noticed that he indeed was going towards where Rao uncle lived. You see I had always had the ability to mentally place different landmarks on the way to wherever I was going, sort of like sprinkling mental bread crumbs so I can find my way there again. I had not started to suspect anything was wrong yet. Everything he was telling me seemed to make sense. We rode along for some more time. It was starting to get dark. I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw Rao uncle's house from the road (their home was set farther back from the road) and was eagerly looking forward to seeing my father.

However, relief quickly turned into fear, when, to my utter dismay and shock the man did not turn into the driveway leading to Rao uncle's house but kept on going. He started pedaling faster and that is when it HIT ME! I became panicky and thought to myself 'He is not taking me to my father, he is KIDNAPPING me'. My heart was beating like crazy. I looked around and saw that we were fast going away from civilization. It was getting darker and darker and the lights of civilization were receding into the horizon. I was sitting in the back carrier seat of the bike and at one point the man stopped the bike and asked me to sit on the seat that is on top of the bar in front of the rider (the bar that is missing in a ladies bike). As a child I had always liked to ride on the back of the bike rather than on the front, so I stubbornly refused. He asked me a few more times and when he saw that I was not going to change my mind he gave in and resumed riding. All this while my mind was churning away thinking of what options I had. There was no way I could run anywhere or scream for help since we were in the middle of nowhere with not a soul around. We rode along deserted roads for what seemed like ages. All I could do was pray and hope that I will get a chance to somehow get help.

That break came when the man finally came to what seemed like a small village. As we were riding into the village he had to make a right turn. In order to make the turn he had to considerably slow down the bike. I saw a few small houses and some people walking towards us in the distance. Thinking that this was my only chance of escaping and ever seeing my family again, I jumped off the bike and ran towards them screaming as loud as my lungs would let me. Thank God, I did not give in to the man's demands and sit in front of him on the bar. He would have had his arms around me and I would have never been able to jump off the bike. Thank God also that the man did not force me to sit in the front of the bike. The man who kidnapped me also saw the people walking towards us. He assumed that they would come to my rescue and rapidly took off on his bike. I asked the people for help, but they just kept on walking like they saw nothing. I am not sure if they did not understand what I was saying or just did not want to bother. My panic grew and I prayed hard that the man would not come back looking for me. I stood there alone on the side of the road in the shadows (so I won't be seen) waiting for someone to come by. After what seemed like an eternity I noticed a lone gentleman walking towards me. I bolted towards him making sure I did not make too much of a racket in case the man who kidnapped me was still lurking around. He was a well-dressed elderly man and had a kind face. When I reached the gentleman I just burst into tears and started rattling off to him about how I was kidnapped and that I wanted to see my parents and on and on!! He calmed me down and asked me where I was from, what my name was etc. I told him everything that happened and gave him our address. He promised me that he will get me back home. What happened afterwards is a blur now. All I remember is the nice gentleman taking me home in a rickshaw. I don't remember where and how we boarded the rickshaw. I clearly remember seeing the gate of my house and my father sitting outside, on one of the huge stone slabs that were in front of our gate, with his hand on his head. A policeman was standing next to my father.

While I was having my own nightmare, preparations for the pooja were in full swing at home. My mother and second sister were in the kitchen and had not an inkling that I had left home, until my father and Gupta uncle came back from the store. As my father got into the house my older sister noticed that I was not with him. Normally, every time I went with him I would come running into the house ahead of him. My sister asked my father, "Where is Seetha?" My father was taken aback and asked "What do you mean, she is not with me?" As soon as my older sister heard that, she knew something had gone horribly wrong. She told my father everything that happened. My father called the police. Celebration had turned into panic. And then hours later, when I showed up at my doorstep with the kind gentleman who helped me, panic turned into celebration again!!

My father told me later that he thought he had lost his youngest child forever. The police really had no idea where they would even begin to look for me. He also told me that he believed that it was divine intervention that brought me back home that night. We learnt from the nice gentleman who rescued me that he was a native a BBSR. He had come to the BAM area on some business and was held back longer than he had intended to stay due to the cyclone that hit the area! He was due to leave the next morning!

Now I bet you are STILL wondering, "What does this have to do with Slumdog Millionaire?"
Well, here are some facts that were revealed after the investigation into my kidnapping was complete.
The man who kidnapped me belonged to a gang that was operating in and around Berhampur. Remember the paan shops Enarkay was mentioning in an earlier blog that were right across the street from my house? Apparently my kidnapper stood there for days watching me and everything that was going on in my house, watching everyone who came to our house, learned their names and everything they did. The gang's mandate was to kidnap young children, maim them and make them beg for alms or force little girls into prostitution. Watching the movie brought back all the events of that day back in 1968 and made me realize how close I came to ending up an 'andha', 'langda' or a prostitute. Just writing about it sends a chill down my spine!!