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!