Caravan - the summer(?) in autumn '72

This evening, I was on my regular walk in the sheltered cantonment area. The brisk walk over a stretch of roughly six kms takes me around 48 minutes to complete but freshens me for the remaining part of the evening besides being able to reflect over the day’s proceedings. Normally, I’m out of the house by a quarter to seven and it’s during this time when I also do a bit of breezy socializing by saying a hello or simply give a friendly wave or even talk to a few fellow walkers, who’ve become familiar, over a period of time and such exchanges always invigorate me.
Of this circuit, there’s a stretch of a kilometer and a half over the Mall road, where music wafts through speakers, fitted on electric poles at regular intervals, for the benefit of the walkers and I enjoy it thoroughly always hoping that I do not have to pick up conversation with anybody to enable savouring the music at hand. This evening, much to my delight it was the song, ‘Arrey ho, ho, ho, ho goriya kahan tera desh re….’ from the evergreen Jeetender, Asha Parekh hit ‘Caravan’ as this is related to a special occasion in my life.
Thirty eight years back, sometime in Sep ’72 after clearing the SSB(Services Selection Board) interview, at Mysore, for the NDA, I was out on liberty for the evening, on cloud nine and absolutely thrilled with life. I was to report to the IAM(Institute of Aviation Medicine) at Bangalore for my medicals and the Chamundi express, on which I’d got my reservation, was available only next morning. I and my schoolmate, Sebastian Thomas – the only two guys to clear from our batch of 28 guys – had then decided to see ‘Caravan’. It was while taking my seat in the auditorium, that I saw three girls being needled by two guys and one of the girls was close to tears. The chivalrous guys that we were quickly took charge and sent the guys packing to another set of seats and we took over as temporary guardians of the girls at hand.
I must admit that the girl who was close to tears, had tugged at my heart –her name was Shantini- and as I’d said earlier in this blog of mine, one of the numerous ‘loves’ that I’d fallen headlong into. And mind you, that affair lasted only during the space of that one evening and I don’t even know whether she reciprocated the sentiments! Incidentally, the song cited above was liked by both of us, as we exchanged notes after the movie, over icecreams at a Dasaprakash outlet!