SPIT FOR SPAT

(2 Min Read)

Even at 65, Ram Sahay Shukla was the unrivalled poet-laureate of Raigarh, his home town. He was quite in demand for Kabi Sammelans during his youth. That he was no longer invited to grace such occasions did seem to hurt him; but he took this neglect in his stride. In his heyday, he was an instant ‘hit’ with the audience chiefly for his salacious and suggestive lines about erotic love. Age had not withered his capabilities, and he still regularly churned out his ‘poems’, though for a much smaller audience now.

If he were not better known as a poet, he would certainly have been noticed as the most voracious paan-eater of the town. He was never seen in public without his mouth stuffed with paan. He could never put together a poem, much less recite it to an audience, without chewing paan. He was thoroughly convinced that his remarkable talent and creativity oozed out from the tingling of his salivary glands with a mouthful of the leafy bundle liberally laced with the strongest zarda available with the paan-wallah.

Ram Sahay’s regular listeners maintained a discreet distance from him. Uninitiated ones were generously sprayed with paan spit which flew in intermittent jets all around him as he opened his big mouth and turned his head from side to side to establish eye-contact and direct rapport with his audience. He was, of course, oblivious of literally adding a lot of colour to the gathering; except for once when there was a small ‘accident.’

Ram Sahay was a regular visitor to the municipal library which was situated in the heart of the town and on the first floor of a busy shopping complex. He had found that those who had time for books also had time for his poems. One chilly winter afternoon, he spotted a small audience basking on the terrace.

To set the mood for reciting his latest creation, he stuffed a paan into his mouth, as though by reflex action. Before beginning the recitation, he evacuated the bitter fluid from his mouth as usual. At this, there was heard from the street below angry enquiry about the legitimacy of birth of the spitter, and loud proclamation of intention to establish carnal relations with the spitter’s female relatives.

The poet looked down, and was startled, though only for a moment. His spit had landed squarely on a bald seth who was soaking in the sun in front of his shop. The seth was coloured beyond recognition, and was livid with rage. It appeared likely that the angry seth would physically assault the poet. But Ram Sahay had long experience of handling hostile crowds. Instead of making himself scarce, he immediately rushed down, took out a paan from his pocket, offered it to the seth and lowered his head inviting the seth to spit on him. The dumbfounded seth, of course, had to forgive him, only managing to mumble a warning for the poet to look before he spat in future.

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Note: Late Shri Anandi Sahay Shukla (May his soul rest in peace!) had himself narrated this incident to me in 1986. In this piece written in 1990, and published in the Times of India, I had made a minor change in the name.

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