Highlights In The Shadows: 1 - Introduction
Owen Clement remembers his life as a series of incidents – highlights which stand out from the shadows. These highlights come vividly to mind as he looks back at his life, and thinks also of people in his family.
Owen was born in India and now lives in Australia. He has many a tale to tell. Today Open Writing begins the serialisation of his story, Highlights In The Shadows, with an account of a boyhood fishing trip to a lagoon in an Indian village.
Twilight memories often cast a pleasant glow on past images where the details are hidden in the shadows. An occasional highlight will throw up some vague form that triggers a long forgotten incident, often of no great significance. My memories are full of events such as these.
I remember, for instance, my father taking me along on a fishing trip to a nearby village in Bengal, India when I was about fifteen. My father's shikari friend, Bhadsha, who worked my father’s department at the railway workshops and lived in the village, came and sat with me on a bamboo machan that extended over the tank (lagoon) for about ten feet. We were thoroughly enjoying our afternoon chatting on a wide range of subjects while sitting in the shade of a large black umbrella tied to a bamboo pole. Bhadsha’s self-imposed task that day was to instruct me in the delicate technique of still water float fishing for the muddy tasting Rouh and Katla.
Late in the afternoon the village headman became concerned with the size of my father’s and my catch of a half a dozen fish and insisted that we leave. My father, who was incensed at the old man's grievances, as we had him paid well for the privilege, threw our catch at the old man’s feet, loaded Bhadsha and me into his ancient Fiat two-seater and drove off with me beside him and Bhadsha perched in the dicky seat behind. When we arrived at our home, Bhadsha pulled out the two fish I had caught, which he had secretly hidden near his feet, and with a pleading look at my father for his approval, handed them to me.
I found this act extraordinarily kind considering the way I had seen him treat his own little son shortly after our arrival at his village earlier that morning. The toddler, no more than three years old, had been trying to catch his father's attention by persistently pulling his father's voluminous trousers when without saying a word Bhadsha brought his knuckles down on the little fellow’s head with such force that he sent the stunned child sprawling in the dirt.
Bhadsha, a Moslem, was above average height with close cropped iron-grey hair, an impressive moustache and pale grey eyes. At that time, he was probably in his mid-forties.
A few days after our fishing excursion, we got word that he had died of a heart attack. I remember the shock I felt even today.
Considering many other far more personally significant events that have occurred in my life, this seems to be the sort of recollection that comes more readily to mind.
© Clement 2006
