Mooli’s going has brought back so many memories of him, from short-pant days in Doon in 1970-72 to the last time I saw him, which I think is Maya’s wedding in Sri Lanka, and to the last time we spoke which was about a month ago when he suddenly called me from the hospital.
For me he was always a friend, at different times in our lives. I knew him most intensely in Doon days and lost touch for years until he came to Delhi as an IAS officer in (I think) the late 1980s/early 1990s. There were two Moolis for me – the schoolboy Mooli and the adult, professional Mooli. As a schoolboy, I remember him as always on the move, effervescent, supremely clever, light on his feet and athletic, pranky, and quite disclosive (he never hid his feelings much – and his wonderful eyes and expressive face told you everything). As the adult, he was more settled of course and the effervescence had given way to an unhurried reflective professional. The supremely clever boy was sober and wise. He wasn’t as light on his feet or athletic anymore! But he was graceful and economical in his physical movements – he used his hands beautifully. The prankster in him had given way to a ribbing jokiness when he wanted to be mischievous. Inevitably, he was not the disclosive personality he had been – as a civil servant he was more discreet and guarded.
What had not changed in Mooli – his intelligence, which was always a couple of steps ahead; his talent, which now was channelled into a formidable administrative capacity; his intensity (he was rarely frivolous even as a boy, the puns and pranks notwithstanding); his sympathy for others who needed his help (and even if they didn’t); his sense of humour; his positivity (I never heard him pessimistic about India or Life or negative about anyone). I used to marvel in Doon days at how prodigious he was and how efficient – so often I would see him carrying around his class-notes or a textbook even as he went about this or that as a Prefect or Captain of some activity or other. I didn’t know him as an IAS colleague – I can imagine though that he continued to be a master multi-tasker.
Mooli was a loyal friend at school. I think he was more loyal than I was – but that is between him and me now forever. He was loyal when we were adults – not in a suffocating, cloying way, talking about old school days. He was not so much loyal to our past together – though that was always implicit. He was loyal in the here and now. I didn’t need much from him, but when I did, he was there. These were little things for him, I know; but when friends do little things for you, it sticks because they are so little and could just be ignored. Mooli didn’t do ignoring. I remember wanting to visit North Block, when I was at JNU, just to see the Ministry of Defence corridors – it was a chance remark to him one drinking evening in Delhi. Soon after, he invited me over to his office and gave me a small tour and a couple of hours of his overloaded time. When I was head of Doon, we desperately wanted a judge for our One-Act Play Competition. I don’t know how we thought of Mooli suddenly, but it was an inspired choice. In the midst of his myriad duties, he came and did it with all the seriousness and yet lightness of touch that you need for these engagements. A couple of years ago, when Shailaja had retired from the Indian Express and was moving to Jindal University, she needed her LSR/Delhi University transcript. Of course, Mooli, now himself retired from MHRD, placed several calls to help us get the document. Little things but done with grace and care and urgency when he could so easily have let it go.
I was always in awe of Mooli. Mooli – the first boy in Doon’s history to get both the Scholar’s and Games Blazer; the most diminutive School basketball captain ever and probably the first to do the hop-skip-layup; the first person I saw who debated as you should – extempore (the rest of us memorized our debates), witty, gently combative, charming; winner of a long list of cups and awards; running past me with ease and going on to place 9th or 10th in the cross-country competition to get that 1 point he needed for his Games Blazer (I had laboured through my regulation eight practice runs – I don’t think Mooli had had time to do a single practice!); founding and running The History Times and the funnier magazine, Fag – setting a trend that climaxed many years later (when I was HM, school publications had gone up to a dozen or so, but Mooli was the first to challenge the hegemonic Doon School Weekly which had been going since 1936). He was the best of us in 1972, 327-Tata House, little frame but big heart and head.
I didn’t know Mooli the administrator, but I was in awe of something quite different. It was the activist, archivist, and anthropologist Mooli that blossomed alongside his IAS responsibilities. I remember several evenings of talk about his interest in the crafts of the region and in particular bamboo and its uses (he gently corrected me – “Kanti, not many know this, but bamboo is a grass”). He was encyclopaedic on the subject. I remember thinking: I would never have predicted this in Mooli! But there he was reeling off facts and ideas about bamboo. When I was back at Doon some years later, as head I had to manage all the bamboo we had on the estate. When we had a rather serious bamboo fire, I turned immediately to Mooli – and he gave me sensible on-the-spot advice and put us in touch with experts. His photo archiving of the northeast and in particular the Monpas: I always thought of Mooli as a super-technocrat, and this turn in him was so unexpected. He also knew a lot about the people of the northeast. I don’t remember why Arunachal became so important for him given that he was in the Assam cadre, but I do remember that he opted to go to Arunachal from a posting at the Centre at one point. What prompted that – the physical beauty of the state, of its people, of their society? There was something very touching about his interest. Plus, the photos were stunning; and the quiet, matter-of-fact, sometimes wry comments below the pictures were often gems.
I could do on, but I should close before I get even more self-indulgent. It is hard to think Mooli is gone. I am sad that I will never see him again but glad that his pain is over. He will be missed, terribly, but the thought of him will always bring a warm smile.
Cheers to Vinay Sheel Oberoi, our treasured Mooli,
Love, Kanti