Of big cities and the small ones..Part 1

This is the chronicle of big cities and smaller towns, through the eyes of a small town girl who grew up to be a small town adult.  With the little experiences in big as well as small corners of this beautiful country, the kaleidoscope of life now is a colourful and exciting one.

I was born in Ranchi, which during those days, years and years before it went on to become a capital city, was a small hilly town.  We had a cosy quarter in the Heavy Engineering Corporation township and days were bright and evenings were filled with lots of friends and neighbours.  With no television around, each evening, a visit to the market or to some friend’s house was a routine.  Life moved at a small pace and at small pace did we crisscross the roads, red gravelled and metalled ones since there was no means of transport other than our never tired feet.  Later in life, a simple lambretta scooter and later Hamara Bajaj entered the life, the pace remained slow, nevertheless. Simple was the life, simpler were the needs and we grew up with a light in the eye which had a beautiful shimmer and never a flashy one.

My first job took me away to a smaller place, a small block called Barhi in the Hazaribagh district.  There I shared the house with my team members.  Our house was right in the middle of a bustling market and on the Grand Trunk Road.  In a radius of a kilometre, we had everything we generally wanted: the office, the vegetable market, the Block Office (from where we fetched our drinking water).   At times an evening visit to nearby Tilaiya Dam to soak our tired feet was a bonus and yes, our cooking gas cylinder had to be procured from the nearest town Jhumri Tilaiya, a beautiful town by the river Damodar.  This little place had the electricity for only half the year and the rest of the year, moonlight, oil lamps and open terrace were there for rescue.  Ofcourse, Ghulam Ali Saab was always there.

We did live like queens in the little town.  Our neighbours were the Block Development Officer and the Sub Divisional Police Officer.  Being in one of the prestigious organisations, we were in no time quite known in that block town of Barhi.

We often visited the only cinema hall that Barhi had.  It was just behind our house.  Just before the show, the cinema hall in charge would place some school benches and then issue the tickets.  We carried our tea and mosquito repellent coils to the hall and always were offered the best of the benches, the front seats (yes, in the hall in Barhi, the front seats were prestigious ones).

A job then took me to the cultural and educational town of Kalyani in Nadia district, West Bengal.  Once again, office was just a km away and all I needed was available just around the house I lived in.  A plush traditional Bengali House with a generous, elegant landlady made my stay so blissful.  I had three big rooms, a huge dining space and an equally big kitchen to all of myself.  Whenever my parents visited me, they would shop for fresh vegetable from the market and treat me to the best of Bengali cuisines.  The town’s life as well as mine revolved around the posh Central Park.  Small though it was, there were three local railway stations in the town, given the fact that it housed some important industries and educational institutes.

Life, though simple, the pleasures were not very little.  From winter fete to Usha Utthup to Srikanto Acharya and Manna Dey, we had all, all the pleasures of watching the legends on stage.

My next stay was at Shajapur, again a 1-km radius district town, which you may not even have heard of.  Little towns have big hearts, I realised. Most of us knew each other and help arrived at just one phone call.  Here I did not even have to go to office, my residence was the office and early mornings were spent in visit to the villages in the project area.  The little town had the most beautiful and elegant ladies I have ever known; they were always very well groomed and gave us a lesson or two on it.  My landlady and her family lived right in the first floor while I occupied the ground floor.  Often from upstairs, she would ask me to join them for dinner and I, with whatever cooking would be done, would rush upstairs and have a sumptuous dinner with them.

My house was adjacent to the railway station.  Twice or thrice a day a train would arrive at the sleepy station.  The dust would fly announcing the arrival and the giant could be seen meandering from a distance.  I would book my tickets for my weekly travel to Dahod, across a single window, where one person doubled and tripled as the ticketer, guard, station master.  Occasionally we would visit the nearby Ujjain to get some things for ourselves; otherwise the little town fulfilled all our needs, small as they were.  Three of us colleagues would hop onto a Luna and visit the cinema hall, escaping the prying eyes of the traffic police and at times requesting him, “Uncle jee..jaane do na”

We shifted to Ujjain just after a year, exactly before the Kumbh Mela of 2004.  Though Ujjain is an important pilgrimage, the city itself has a small town feel where life moves at its own pace where the common reply to all your requests would be, “Hau didi..ho jaayega ni..” and it would take its own time.  There is no hurry for anything. So we too immersed ourselves in the flow of Ujjain Standard Time and moved, blissfully. We experienced the Kumbh Mela, a very efficiently managed macro event, we witnessed the Kalidas Academy festivals, visited the beautiful temples of pilgrimage, had our home filled with guests, neighbours, family members; we were so busy in all these. We were so busy in the drama of life and enjoyed it totally. Ujjain is a place where there is a festival everyday, infact Ujjain celebrated LIFE.  In Ujjain did our daughter come home and so the celebrations multiplied. We were so much in love with this temple town that we named her Avantika (Avantika Nagari being one of the names of the town).

A transfer order from Head Office brought me and my family to Anand, the milk capital of India: once again a to 2-3 km town.  Life again confined itself within a small campus which houses my office, home, child’s school, crèche, utility store and also an Auditorium which screens recent movies on Sundays.  Only occasionally one needs to venture out for more supplies in kitchen, wardrobe and may be to luxury.  The campus is a place where I don’t have to worry about my child playing out while I am in office.  I don’t have to worry when its getting dark and she has not returned, knowing she may be dining at some neighbors' place.  The home, always teeming with children may not be the best well kept one but I am sure, is the happiest one with all the laughter of friendly little neighboring children. We do not shut our doors here, we do not worry here.  In fact we at times are also concerned that living in such a protected environment, our children would have no worldly wisdom; oblivious to the hustle bustle outside, the children will not even learn to cross the streets. Railway station is just 2 km away and I have never known the perils of travelling long way to office or to station.

At times I do feel that these towns have ushered me to a comfort zone, from which it may be painful to get out. However, as long as we are, where we are, the small little places are growing and taking charge on the entire personality and I am enjoying it totally. In every aspect, I am a now small town person. 

Not that I really dislike the speed and adventure of the metros. I do and I have experienced, of which I shall write in my next note.

Photographs: From Internet

Moonlights, rivers and also a window-view of city garbage

“Arey Bhaiya, yeh darwaza toh baahar se bandh hee nahi hota. Main baahar khaana khane jaa rahee hoo..bandh karna hai apna room”

“Madam, yeh room sirf andar se bandh hota hai…”

!!!!!!!!!!!??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was standing outside my room, in a dingy hotel in Samastipur, in a hot, sultry evening.  I had not yet settled in the room; having checked the pathetic situation,  I had decided to opt for another room.  But then, I needed dinner first and had to lock the room but they said the room had a lock problem. 

So I had to first wait for shifting to the new room before visiting the equally terrific restaurant for dinner.  The new room offered a non stop sound of the window AC and made me feel it would come off any moment and ofcourse it did not cool the room,.  But then it was better than the suite which I had left behind.

The suite which was initially offered had all facilities: a bath tub, which was ONCE WHITE and now yellow, shower curtains well bit and shaped by sharp mice teeth, two-three layers of dust shoved off under a tattered foot mat and a window which offered an unabashed view of the city garbage.  The window opened onto a street where fruit-juice sellers benevolently threw all the fruit peels to make a big heap.

So, that was Samastipur…

I often tell my peers, the hardships during travel will add to their memories and years after, down the line, they would narrate the tales, the miserable feeling would have disappeared by then but the memories would be etched in the leaves of time dotted with nostalgia and a magical feeling of triumph to tell one self, “Yes, I survived that too…”

Having spent almost 20 years in rural development, I have such memories when I had to put up in strangest of places and toughest of situations but now they are sweet memories for which my pen (key board) is curious to sew strings of words..

It was just after my Post Graduation that I was posted in Barhi, a block in the Hazaribagh district of Then-Bihar.  My room-windows opened directly on the Grand Trunk Road.  The situation was such that if I opened the windows, dust and all the noise entered the room and snatched my sleep.  If I did not, ofcourse I felt suffocated during the summer months.  So I learnt to sleep with the horns and the noise outside the window.  It was there that I realised Noise Pollution actually could affect health.  During monsoons, most of the GT road would be transformed into a stretch of long pools, gutters and mud holes.  So there were nights when array of  heavy vehicles lined up, just outside the window and I could actually hear the truck drivers chat, all night.

We had to live without electricity for months after months, say for six months at a stretch.  Each evening, we cleaned the oil lamps, sat outside on a terrace, eating those freshly roasted corns.  The water for bath and cleaning had to be pulled up by the motor-pump from an INDARA (a deep narrow well).  These INDARAS had been dug by none other than Sher Shah Suri, himself, when he built the GT road and as a legacy, our rented house had one.  Fetching of drinking water was even more challenging.  Every evening, after returning from the field work, we took few buckets in our jeep and got the water from the Hand Pump near the Block Office.

Life was simple back then; we did not need the TV, all if us gathered around a small CD player and enjoyed meal under the terrace in the sleepy dark place.

The village visits during my second job was to remotest parts of the newly born Jharkhand State.  Long winding hilly roads would take us to villages where households were scattered.  Early mornings at times would begin with a visit to the nearby jungles (you know why) and then an early morning bath near paddy field where we drew water from the irrigation wells or at narrow meandering hilly rivulets.  At times we did have the luxury of make-shift bathrooms made by plastic sheets wrapped around four poles.

We did have our moments of anxiety too when at times early in the morning we would find the entire paddy harvested or the make shift bathroom packed and dispatched off. Our plight at not being able to have a bath is beyond words.

Here I also need to mention the unfathomable love and affection we always received in the villages.  In fact in one of the villages, all the residents were so excited to have us as guest, that we found each one drunk heavily for the celebration and so, all the work, the study, the discussion we had in mind went in vain and we returned.

In the journey of life, these experiences are adding on to the sweet memories.  As I look beyond, I find the pains and miseries all gone and what is left is fragrance of these memories.  It is because of these experiences that I have something to write about today.  After all, what is life without all the troubles that make us more enduring and a more confident person!