This was the fellow who transformed bedtime into theatre, narrating Treasure Island with such gusto—and sound effects worthy of All India Radio—that pirates and parrots seemed to take up residence in our room. He was also the chap who taught me to walk, tie my shoelaces, and wrestle with the great British invention known as the tie—as treacherous a garment as ever strangled a schoolboy.
Scooter rides? Ah, but here lies a saga! The machine in question was, more often than not, pinched from our unsuspecting maternal uncle and taken to a most unusual proving ground. This was no gentle road but one used by the Army to teach drivers the noble art of vehicular survival: hills, broken bridges, bone‑rattling obstacles designed to challenge both man and machine. And there we were, two boys defying the laws of Newton as our humble LML scooter would launch itself skyward, wheels somersaulting, and invariably land with me acting as a rather reluctant cushion atop my elder brother’s heroic frame.
I can say with hand on heart and a straight face that LML scooters were jolly tough contraptions indeed. After all, James Bond may have flown over broken bridges in an Aston Martin, but my brother managed the same feat on an LML—a spectacle that, when viewed from the saddle, was exhilarating, terrifying, and oddly refreshing for the soul.
His duties, I might add, extended well beyond gravity‑defiance and school runs. He also chauffeured me on solemn expeditions to our family vet, the resplendent Colonel Y. N. Upadhyay—whose moustache alone could have commanded a cavalry regiment.
He browbeat me into buying books I had no earthly desire to read, and yet, curiously, I treasure them still. He gamely took up horse‑riding with me, dropped me to school with the air of a reluctant chauffeur, and was my companion at my very first film—where, I regret to inform you, I howled like a banshee when the hero met his untimely end.
At home, he reigned supreme as the family mechanic and local oracle for all matters nuts, bolts, and grease. Motorcycles trembled before him as he stripped and reassembled them, with me in the capacity of humble tool‑bearer. Generators, cars, cassette players, tape recorders, cordless phones—all submitted to his spanners. When the town bought their dish antennas, he simply manufactured one. If there was a solar eclipse, he’d whip up a telescope. On quieter days, a microscope would emerge from his tinkering hands. Frankly, if necessity is the mother of invention, my brother was the star pupil.
The result? A childhood both chaotic and enchanting, its soundtrack the clink of spanners, the crackle of tape recorders, the hum of generators, the Colonel’s cavalry moustache, and the occasional dramatic sob in a darkened cinema.
So, ladies and gentlemen, steady your nerves and still your beating hearts—for here he is, my elder brother: a man who could make a scooter fly, a telescope materialise, and a childhood sparkle. A chap quite out of the ordinary run of men—who gave me tales instead of toys, adventures instead of lessons, and memories far sturdier than any machine he ever repaired.
