THE CULVERT DAYS

I’m back again after a long break. Somehow I haven’t found the inspiration to write anything in a long time.  But recently I lost a brother and today he would have been 63 years old.  So I reflected on his life and then I reflected on my life and I was filled with a sense of nostalgia.  

I tell you kid, back then in the Santa Cruz that was, it was really great being a kid.  We played Hide and Seek on the streets, jumped over anybody’s walls and stood at the corners and laughed our heads off for silly reasons.  Life was simple and carefree.  Nobody bothered about exams until the last minute. We cycled down to the beach every morning in summer, we entered strange homes and enjoyed the hospitality and we shook or threw stones at all the trees that would drop down their fruits.  We could take shortcuts through the neighbour’s garden and as we walked down the roads we would shout out a friend’s name collecting the gang before we got together and decided what to do with our evening.  Nobody stayed at home any evening.  Yes, those were the days of the summer tournaments, the two rupee movies to be seen in the church hall, the hand out of boiled gram after the rosary in the church and the last minute mugging that got us promoted to the next class.  And those were the days of the culverts.

I’m sure you would like to ask me What’s a CULVERT?  They were little cement benches placed at the corners of every street for anyone who wanted to sit down in the open and rest their tired feet or watch the world go by.  They also accommodated anybody or any gang that did not want to go any particular place.  That’s how I remember my brother. He was a part of this culvert gang.  His friends came over every evening but they never entered the house.  They would whistle a tune from the street, a signature tune, and he would go out and join them and together they would go collecting other friends I suppose, whistling the same signature tune?  Their favourite haunts – the culverts of Santa Cruz, the Willingdon gymkhana and the church walls.  They never actually entered the church but for all the major services they would perch themselves on the walls  around and I never really knew what they did.  They were not particularly interested in church but they had a supporter in Fr. Urbaldo Barreto. It seemed like he championed their cause. In any case he was the one priest my brother spoke well of – a champion of the underdog. It didn’t seem like they studied or had any ambition. People suspected they drank but I don’t remember that Ramon ever came home drunk.  When I look back I see that they were disapproved of by many but I cannot remember that they harmed anyone, nor stole, nor took to drugs, nor even messed around with young girls.  They just clubbed together and had their own fun.  

My brother Ramon was never hot on studies although he had a good measure of intelligence.  He finished his catering course and went off to Dubai and stayed with the same hotel the rest of his life.  He never changed his job since he left.  But the days of the culvert seem to have given him a thirst for justice and generosity towards the underdog and a belief in working hard to earn his daily bread.  He took no short cuts on making a fast buck, he never took advantage of anybody and he gave generously in charity to uplift the not so fortunate.  Those who worked under him grieve his loss.  He had a healthy respect for the less fortunate classes of society and always treated them with courtesy and generosity.  There’s much to be said for a culvert education.  A life on the street has its own advantages.  And there were never better values imbibed than those on the street with the backing of a clean family life.  

Today you do not see any culverts in Santa Cruz.  What a pity!  The whole face of that little town has changed.  Now we are surrounded by cement jungles and there’s no more crossing the neighbour’s compound to get anywhere. Crossing has now become a matter of navigating between cars and buses. Today the world of the youth is a world of tablets and cell phones and most of the time the youth have their eyes or their ears plastered to one or the other.  No matter.  I’m not judging you kid. I suppose you will have your fare share of stories to tell when you reach the golden years. They didn’t approve of us either.  The laughing hyenas they called us.  But me – I’m filled with a sense of nostalgia kid, and a little remorse because you may never know what it’s like to sit on a culvert and throw back your head and laugh with abandonment.