Few called Malcolm Booth anything else, for that senior citizen reached out and won the love and respect of people of all ages. In fact, when a younger person called him “Mr Booth”, he would look around and quip, “I can’t see my Dad anywhere here.”

The veteran railwayman and stalwart of the Anglo-Indian community, who passed away recently following age-related complications, bridged the generation-gap with rare aplomb, and had left behind a host of friends, admirers and well-wishers in Lucknow, Delhi, and latterly Pune. At a memorial service at his much-loved Frank Anthony Public School, several people recalled associations that stretched over six decades.

Mally had two passions in life: the railway and his microscopic-minority community. A leading Mechanical Engineer, who served the Northern Railway, Railway Board and RITES with distinction, he was “the last word” on locomotives. Not surprisingly, he helped establish the National Railway Museum in the Capital to help conserve the heritage of the “permanent way”. So, until recently, he was frequently consulted by his successors to guide them when facing problems.

After retirement he plunged himself into community affairs, toiled tirelessly and, despite a no-nonsense air, injected compassion into the granting of scholarship and so on. Though he never arrogated unto himself the accolade of “educationist” he was proud to serve on the managing committees of many Anglo-Indian schools.

Mally had a special brand of humour and inexhaustible stock of “naughty jokes”. When a sweet young thing teased that he was a wicked old man he shot back, “I may be wicked, but not old,” with a disarming twinkle in the eye. No wonder that so many said while theymourned his passing, they felt privileged at having so many happy memories to recall.

War veteran

War veterans sometimes die with few knowing about it. Such was the case of Capt P S Nijhawan, who fought during the 1971 Indo-Pak (Bangladesh) war. The Captain was posted at Pathankot then and would occasionally talk about those hectic days. He later devoted his time to the Vatika Apartments RWA in Mayapuri, where he owned a flat.

Capt Nijhawan was such a conscientious RWA president that he would ring up residents early in the morning in the summer months to tell them to forgo their beauty sleep, switch on their water pumps and fill up coolers, water bottles, buckets and overhead tanks before the supply ran out and not complain later that they had to go thirsty and remain unwashed.

A good-humoured man, who lived up to the age of 90, he was forever young at heart and not averse to cracking a few jokes (while sitting with chowkidars at the gate) at the expense of those who tried to oppose his suggestion for the development of the colony.

His son, Dr Jagjit Singh, who survives him, besides others, continues to treat the residents at his clinic. But the old-timer, who was cremated at the neighbouring Beriwala Bagh, without any bugler sounding Last Post, is sorely missed.

Selfish or not?

Human psychology is indeed complex to understand. And nowhere is it more evident than in the Delhi Metro. In the mad rush for seats, people occupy any empty ones and are loathe to give them up for anyone more needy. A colleague recalled an incident in the Metro when a mother-daughter duo hurriedly shifted from a “reserved seat” to a general one.

The reserved seats, near the doorway, were for old or physically handicapped, but since the train wasn’t crowded, the two occupied them. Their reason to shift in such a rush was to avoid getting up if any elderly person happened to come along. The daughter was explaining this reason to her mother quite loudly and earned quite a few glares from her co-passengers.

In the same train, two young girls, sitting in the reserved seats, didn’t bother to get up when an elderly woman entered the coach. Instead, another passenger on the opposite side offered that old lady a seat. The problem here is one’s mindset. Are we all turning selfish nowadays, the colleague wondered?olleague wondered?

Socially addicted

It’s a trend nowadays to share everything on social media networks. This craze for social media is prevalent not only with youngsters but everyone, irrespective of one’s age. But at times this habit leaves them vulnerable to unwanted trouble, though social media addicts refuse to acknowledge this. To teach one such friend a lesson, an ex-colleague played an excellent prank on him. The friend was travelling in a cab and noticed the driver’s name was Narender.

Since it sounded similar to Narendra Modi, he found it funny and, true to his nature, immediately shared a screenshot of the driver’s id-card on the Facebook. Our ex-colleague found this a good opportunity to rattle his friend. So he noted the driver’s number from the screenshot and called up the driver. He then asked the driver to pass on the call to the passenger.

Then, pretending to be from the intelligence bureau, our ex-colleague began “interrogating” his friend, who not just got a big scare but was puzzled at how the “caller” knew his name. It took a while for him to recognise his friend’s voice and breathe easy. But, hopefully, he got the message.

Tailpiece

Overheard: Last week’s freak “super storm”, set off by a chain of weather events, is just another example of nature’s might and human vulnerability

Contributed by: R V Smith, Aruna Bhowmick, Keith Flory, Nivedita R, Rakesh Kumar and Asha Ramachandran