The Hindi lesson
Fortified by your kind words, fellow pPruners, I push my luck as I have always done and offer a few more Poona memories from 1946:
HAVING joined my father at RAF Poona several months back, five-year-old Geriaviator is learning my way around this strange new world. I'm watching my new friend Lithard, so called because I'm still having trouble with my Zs; he's a big green lizard with an orange stripe down his back, he lives in the thatch above my bedroom and he has learned to come out when I tap the thatch with a stick so the bugs fall out to the great distress of my mother, especially when the big brown ones go scrunch as Lithard seizes them for his breakfast.
Mummy and Daddy are still in bed, I toddled in to see them a while back but Daddy growled something about five o'clock go back to bed. Suddenly I hear the welcome sound of a motorbike being kick started, or rather kicked and not starting. A motorbike launch is a major event. It's Sgt James next door, though I can call him Mr James as we don't stand on formality. After many kicks he says “yoo ********* ****” and pedals away on his pushbike.
Between times I have been learning Hindi from Pop, our kindly bearer, so I repeat “yoo ********* ****” several times to lodge it in memory. Now I know the Hindi word for motorcycle, and as Mummy and Daddy are up at last I proudly announce the latest addition to my vocabulary: Yoo ********* ****. Awed by her son's new command of Hindi, Mummy stands in stunned silence, Daddy starts coughing and looks the other way. I certainly didn't teach him that, he mutters.
I overheard Daddy saying that James had got the motorbike from the Pongos, and carefully note this for future reference. I have no idea what these Pongos might be, but they might have another bike which I could ride when I'm bigger. Indeed, the Pongos might find a spare Bedford truck I could take off their hands, and there's plenty of Vengeance aeroplanes lying about the airfield...
After breakfast I decide to help Mr James with his motorcycle, as he has thoughtfully left his tools alongside the recalcitrant machine. I have watched him changing the plug, an operation required on many occasions, so I place the plug spanner and give it a heave. I'm not strong enough to release the plug but I do manage to break the insulator as the spanner slews sideways despite my father's dash along the verandah.
Now see what you've done, says Daddy. Mr. James will find it very hard to get another spark plug, you will have to tell him you're very sorry. Yoo ********* ****, I reply. Daddy seems lost for words. A few days later Mr James repairs his bike but returns home with his leg in a big white boot, having fallen off the machine and broken his leg. Yes, he has a very sore leg, he confirms when I board his verandah to inspect his big boot.
Yoo ********* ****, I say. Something like that, replies Mr. James.