On the bazaars

1638. — “We came into a Bussar, or very faire Market place.” — W. Bruton, in Hakl. v. 50.

(source: Hobson-Jobson)

There is something incurably romantic about the bazaars within the depths of the cities of India. The term bazaar has been naturalized in the English diction for many centuries now. In fact, if you look at the various usages of the term in dictionaries, a whole new range of meanings connected with human culture and human habitat emerge.

Why am I writing this post on bazaars, such a commonplace habitat of the human world? I really don’t know — just felt the internal urge to connect with you all through some mad trope that attracts me. I have been thinking of a metaphorical connection with the world as a market-place where sometimes we shop things, emotions, moments, and people for real, while at other times we just go window-shopping coming back home empty-handed.

Visually, (taking the V.S.Naipaul kind of description in his India Trilogy) these streets in the bazaars of India are full of dirt, stench, betel-spittle, crowd and smoke.  These gullies appear like breathing, yawning, salivating human-beings who survive in what the rich and the famous would call ‘mediocrity’.  The bazaars (sometimes called haat) are the hubs of cheaper, affordable, and sustainable products. Yet, they are the most living and throbbing places in India.

A brief anecdote, as  Undergraduate students we used to have one day in every six months for ‘hostel duty’ where we were supposed to accompany the caretaker to the daily-haat in Bhubaneswar (famously known as 1 Number Haat). Those days, I dreaded the thought of even going to the haat to buy vegetables and groceries for the entire hostel. The heat, dust, and sweat of these market-places drove me crazy and even if it was 8 o clock of a winter evening, I would come back and take a thorough shower. Looking back into those times, I regret missing many chances of understanding the beauty of the daily market place, perhaps due to my ‘elite’ sentiments. I am not sure if personally I have overcome this distance from the daily markets, but have definitely become more perceptive towards the aesthetic charm of these markets.

The bazaars in India appear to reflect the avarice which is an integral part of human personality but which we human beings continuously try to push into the unconscious or perhaps pretend that it is not there in our personalities.  They reflect the hunger for ‘more’ kind of a sentiment. You can try visiting the markets and feel the need for buying what is completely, purely needless.

To be a nature-lover, searching for pockets that are ‘far from the madding crowd’, silent, and calm have been the passion of many. However, of late I have been observing the joy of the street-side, the openness of the markets, the secret sense of independence that you get when you are bargaining and arguing for  small, insignificant ‘nothings’ and then the pride of grabbing what you might think to be impossible in the scheme of your shopping. The madness of the crowd and the noise of the market-place often make the toughest person crack into anarchy, and also might drive the strictest ascetic to insanity. Try venturing out into the heart of old cities: Hyderabad, Mumbai (Dadar area, Hindmata Market), old Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, etc. during the day in the peak summers. You will understand what am I trying to talk of — no less than any adventure sport. However, a word of caution — do carry your water bottles if you try something of the kind.

There is an air of austerity, a moment of  ‘sacredness’ about shopping in the malls which are ‘cleaner’, ‘hygienic’ and  ‘sophisticated’ means of realizing your need for buying things (many of which you perhaps hardly need during this life time). Bazaars on the other hand are a carnival of absolute absurdity — raw, ‘brainless’ and completely ‘anarchic’. You have to shout and argue to finalize your deal here while in a shopping complex or in a mall, there is no question of any bargain. I have been thinking of the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic where brands and ‘smooth shopping’ lead to the debacle of a young shopaholic.  Find that there is something ‘profane’ in the absolute sacredness of the malls. The profanity of the bazaars on the other hand is open, unrestrained, and taboo-less.

The language of the market places are different in India. The vernaculars and dialects rule Indian bazaars. Each bazaar in every state of India is unique and different from the other bazaar — yet there are some common threads. Possibly, this is the only place where one would find communal harmony. Interestingly, here we would see a Muslim selling mithais to a Hindu, or a Sindhi selling textiles to a Bengali. I am often amazed by the kind of ‘harmony’ that economic interdependence could bring among people. One might argue that this harmony observed in bazaars is ‘cosmetic’ and one tiny spark in terms of communal differences could lead to a massive riot killing many.

I had once read an interesting take by Amitav Ghosh in one of his novels about the predicament  small shops in the market places of communally troubled zones. There is a moment in The Shadow Lines where Ghosh describes the Khulna riots and the Dhaka turbulence. This moment reflects the menacing calmness of the bazaars before a riot breaks out. In the novel that moment leads to the death of an ailing, poor old man.  No denying that market places are the breeding grounds of communal tension, yet these are also the places where communities survive without strife, based on peaceful coexistence.

Bazaar is also a term that has perhaps some of the most ambiguous and controversial implications. In Bollywood movies, the term bazaar is used to signify the red-light areas of cities where human trafficking, and flesh-trade is practiced within the heart of ‘ethical’ grounds of orthodox social structures. There is a 1982 movie which comes to mind with Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Supriya Pathak, and Farooq Sheikh in lead. The movie is itself called Bazaar and it reflects the absolute ‘stubborn’, unchangeable structures of Indian societywhich is more inhuman rather than anything else.

Bazaar_1982_film_poster_Courtesy: Wiki-images

The purpose of my thought in this article has been to highlight some of the uncommon aspects of a perfectly common arena like a market-place. Bazaars are colourful and vibrant in India. Yet, they are also places which have a silent menace, a hidden notoriety either in the form of eve-teasing, or else in the form of communal upheavals, or prostitution. But is not life designed the same ways: a combination of black, red, white, and grey shades?

Think about it and share your marketplace experiences ….

Goodmorning and do take care of yourselves until we meet again sometime in the timeline….

Random Musings: Gulzar’s ‘Mausam’

Mujhko Bhi Tarkeeb Sikha Koi Yaar Julahe….
Aksar Tujhko Dekha Hai Ek Tana Bunte
Jab Koi Taga Toot Gaya Ya Khatam Hua
Phir Se Baandh Ke Aur Sira Koi Jodh Ke Uss Mein
Aage Bun’ne Lagte Ho….
Maine Tou Ek Baar Buna Tha Ek Hi Rishta
Lekin Uski Saari Girhain Saaf Nazar Aatee Hain Meray Yaar Julahe. ~ Gulzar, (Rough transl: Oh Weaver! Teach me a method too to weave…Often, have I observed  you weaving through one strand…until a thread broke or melted into the cloth…You then take up one of the corners of the cloth with a new thread and start weaving once more….But I, I had tried to weave only once only one relationship…but all the openings in the cloth are so clearly visible, oh friend Weaver! )

A student wrote to me ‘Ma’am there are professors and there are human beings — you will soon transcend the second one to become the first’.  I protested saying that it’s not true, a profession cannot compete with the attribute of being human. The debate was on for sometime and he said that those who teach (especially literature) use sentiments without getting sentimental.  Perhaps, he was right to a certain extent, the need for being scholarly, for being an ‘ideal’ is so strong that sometimes we lose that little gesture of human-ness that would be relevant as a yardstick to setup that ideal.  His statement took me back to my University days (confessional), when one of my Professors had pointed out to a few friends who used to hang out regularly with me and were core supporters of my brainless pranks, ‘Be careful of her. Nothing and no relationships will come in the way of her ambitions — you will fail, while she will will move on to her next destination’ . I had cried the entire night the day that comment had come, nothing was more important for me at that point of time than friends, but perhaps my teacher was right, subliminally I was trying to negotiate my own ways — alone

However, when it comes to feelings and sentiments, no one is an exception — desire to be acknowledged, desire to be loved, desire to be desired is universal and as a human being I have been no exception. We all fail only at the doorsteps of our sentiments.

These personal anecdotes refreshed the memory of a movie that has been a favourite — Gulzar sahab’s Mausam (1975). Thought will pay a small tribute to the maestro on his Birthday (18th August) with this article. It has been raining here profusely and my health, a week of hospitalization, has made me more philosophical  — watched this movie again on my laptop with the rains shimmering down the windows.

A sepia look outside the hospital window

I have been trying to write on Gulzar  for very long, but every time write something, I delete the post.

Mausam

‘Mausam’  reconnects us with these sentiments, emotions, feelings, attachments that are common to all species of the Universe.   It is the story of a medical student Amarnath Gill who comes to live in Darjeeling on a vacation  before his final medical exams and falls in love with an innocent hill-girl, Champa, daughter of the Vaidya. After the vacations he returns back to Calcutta to complete his medical studies and decides to come back to marry the girl. As destiny has  it, when he finally returns it is 35 years later. His life as a highly successful surgeon and manufacturer of a unique pain-killer keeps him busy for all these years. Dr. Gill’s search for the girl begins on a casual note  and starts getting denser with every new mystery, until one day he reaches the place where she actually lived her last life as a mentally challenged person — she died eight months before his coming back to Darjeeling, waiting for him to come back till her last breath. Guilt-ridden the doctor decides to search for Champa’s only daughter Kajri, adopt her and give her the life that her mother deserved. As fate ordains, the doctor finds Kajri in a hen-cooped brothel, mouthing the choicest slang, and living the life of a drunkard, chain-smoker, prostitute. She is rescued from the mohalla and taken by Dr. Gill to the rest-house. He tries to ‘civilize’ her, make her wear sarees and live as a daughter, while not revealing to her that he is the man who is responsible for the destruction of her mother and her own life. The twist comes when Kajri falls in love with the aged doctor and when he reveals to her that he did not come back to Champa because of a shame when he was jailed for an accidental death of a patient during a surgery.  There is some sort of a compromise when in the end the doctor adopts her and takes Kajri back to Calcutta, saying: “Mere saath chalogi? Peeche mud ke dekhne keliye hum dono ke paas kuchh nahin bacha hai.”  (Will you come with me? Both of us have nothing to look back upon.)

Gulzar’s craft is such that little subtleties of life and emotions are captured with an unspeakable brilliance.  In addition, a power-packed performance by Sanjeev Kumar as the doctor and a double-role by Sharmila Tagore as Champa and Kajri, make the movie a classic in its own ways.Realism and masterly acting and craft effortlessly blend in the movie.

There are social messages in Gulzar’s stories, be it Kitab (1977) or Khushboo (1975) or Ijazaat (1987), but what is unique is that they do not sermonize.  Gulzar is a poet and his movies and scripts are poetry in motion and vision, of course with a strong undercurrent of realism. The social messages are embedded in his portrayal of human emotions which seem to be his priority especially interpersonal relationships.

An interesting aspect of the movie when you observe it closely is the casualness with which the movie begins and the seriousness with which it ends. Watching the movie, I felt that the doctor did not come back to Darjeeling with any heightened romantic aspirations of meeting the girl whom he loved through his life. He casually refers to his co-workers when they come to meet him that there was an ‘accident’ — the accident being he fell in love with a girl.  It is only when he starts tracing her and meets several characters, unique in their own ways,  keep giving him fragments of information about the girl, while reminding him,  ‘she was a nice girl, but she was waiting for some doctor to come back…but does anyone come back once they leave?’ With every new character reminding him of his guilt of deserting his love, the passion to search for her grows stronger in the doctor. As the plot unfolds, so do the loss, the pain, the wait, each strand of emotion slowly unfold. Life too reflects this subtlety — emotions sometimes flood, while at other times they wait to haunt you and return to you with a slow, deliberate pace.

Mausam is also about modernization of smaller towns of India and the slow urbanization of the medical system. Encounters between the village Vaidya (Champa’s father) and the Allopathic doctor are remarkable. These seem to be symbolic encounters between two completely different systems of thought.  There are specific names of the herbs that the Vaidya uses. Even Champa is an adept apothecary. When doctor Gill comes back to Darjeeling after a long interval, there  is no trace of the Vaidya Thapa. People of his own locality have completely forgotten him and it is the modern medicinal practices that are ruling in the small towns too. In fact, there is an interesting moment in the story when Dr. Gill has a headache and he goes to the Chemist and asks him to give him an Asprin. The Chemist offers him his own invented medicine. He responds in a tongue-in-cheek fashion to the Chemist, saying ‘no don’t give me Gill’s tablet because that has a lot of Chlorine’.

The girl Champa looses her mental stability while waiting for the doctor to come back.  She keeps telling people around her that she will make Kajri a doctor and get her married to a doctor. Through Kajri, Champa lives in a different form — while Champa is about the unsullied emotion of love, Kajri knows only the language of lust. Kajri is a commentary on the life of girls of small towns, bereft of education or a decent parental upbringing. Champa spends her life in a small weaving factory, weaving clothes, waiting for her love to come back, and fighting her mental derangement. While Kajri is forced into prostitution by the surreptitious moves of her own society and people.

Mausam is an extremely powerful commentary on not only the emotion of love or lust, but also the changing patterns of social and cultural thoughts. Such movies are rare in the history of Bollywood cinema — they make what is truly unique in Hindi cinema. When you are watching this movie, watch it curled up in your bed, with a hot cup of tea, undisturbed by the noise of the world outside, with the rains pattering at your window — perhaps then you get a feel of Gulzar’s art and his craft.

One of my friends recently told me, ‘life is full of options…koi kisi keliye mara nahin jaa raha hai…’move on’ ….’ I have had a few questions — is it intellectual and emotional honesty to regard love in terms of options? When we are talking about human integrity and corruption-less society, does that come from too many options? Does emotional integrity in individuals figure anywhere in building up a superstructure of a larger society? Probably, yes…. Gulzar’s movies show a different trend — they seem to depict a deep emotional integrity, an honesty — a dogged dedication, conviction to one human being or one ideology.  Whether that human being or that ideology is correct or wrong is an altogether different question and different subject.

Through My Lenses: Koraput Memories — II

Those who have been regulars of Iris will recollect the ‘Through My Lenses’ series and Koraput Moments. I had promised in that article, written a year ago (precisely June 2010) that I’ll be back with the second part of the story soon. However, the pictures somehow vanished from my hard-disk and then I could not locate them for one year, until this June when suddenly they reemerged mysteriously from my old desktop’s hard-disk.

Well, a commitment once made is a commitment to be kept — so this weekend article is Anne’s tribute to some unexplored and exquisitely beautiful parts of Odisha — Koraput, Jeypore, and Gupteswar . It’s completely an individual’s experience and perception of the landscape  through the  camera lenses. I would love to hear your opinions and experience if any of the valley.

Koraput, is a sylvan landscape ensconced between hills and mountains. There is  the gorgeous Araku valley connecting Andhra and Odisha on one end and then there is the Salur Ghat  on the other end that connects NH 43 and the rest of Odisha to this valley town located ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’. Rajam is the largest town on the way from Bhubaneswar to Koraput.

Completely girdling the Eastern Ghats, the ghat roads are a beauty in themselves — clouds knocking at your window and if you are lucky enough you might catch a glimpse of thousands of tiger butterflies fluttering around. However, a word of caution — the ghat roads are not safe to be traveled at night or even late evening.

The ghat road

Butterflies flocking around _ in Salur Ghat

A Close-up Profile

Watching these butterflies fly around you is like watching thousands of gig-lamps burning at one go. The Eastern Ghats are known for their erratic weather and sudden spells of rain. I had described about Koraput and life there in the first part of this article. Let me invite you to a festivity that I saw in the place.

While staying in Damanjodi, one morning after a bout of rain and thunder-storm, when I found the skies white-washed and the weather inviting  for a walk, I took my digicam and went out for a walk from the guest-house towards the nearby locality. I was greeted to the chime of bells, ullu-ullu, and Sankha dhwani.  Followed the call of the sankha and landed up in an open area where many married ladies were gathered under a tree. Dressed up in their finery, with pallus over their foreheads and gold jewellery, anklets and alta adorning their feet, against the background of forests and hills — the sight was something to behold. The tree was decorated with sarees, festoons and underneath was the image of a make-shift goddess. On enquiry, someone informed me that it was Savitri Amavasya that day, where married ladies worship the goddess for the long lives of their husbands.

Savitri Puja

Ladies applying Kum-kum on each others forehead

The tree worshiped with sarees and coloured bands

That which struck me as unique in this particular place was the care in which the trees were treated by these ladies. Not a single leaf was supposed to be disturbed by anyone, I was told by an aged lady standing with the sankha there. There was a riot of colours — seemed like nature’s green and the multi-coloured sarees co-mingled and created a visual effect of their own. The rain-washed breeze added the required effect to the settings.

The next morning I went by a car to visit Gupteswar caves. Located 65kms from Koraput, you have to cross Jeypore and move through dense Sal forests in order to reach the caves. The picturesque and extremely controversial Kolab dam is visible from a distance on your way.

View from the roads -- Kolab at a distance

Pastoral

Those of you who are acquainted with Koraput and its histories must be aware that it is currently one of the most troubled landscapes in India. Maoism, Naxalite movements, and religious conversions keep the district in news. Its charm and scenic beauty have given way to turbulent uprisings and daily killings of innocent civilians or junior police officers in the name of Maoist movements and counter-attacks.

Gupteswar falls in that zone of fire. Situated 65kms from the town of Jeypore, the caves are a real adventure for the adventure lover. If you visit Gupteswar make sure that you return to Jeypore before sunset. Dense Sal forests, water-bodies, human-less natural habitats, snakes, and a huge  limestone naturally-formed Shiva lingam of more than 5 feet greet you in Gupteswar.

You might encounter some human habitat for a few kilometers after Jeypore, but after that for miles it is only jungle. I was amused by a forest dawk-bungalow inside the dense forests leading to the caves on a district road. If you are an ardent nature lover or a botanical researcher, this forest IB is a must stay place.

A forest dawk-bungalow

The smell of the forests is something unique — scary and enigmatic. The rules of the jungle are beyond the perception of the ‘civilized’ human — but these are rules still.

Miles to go

Road to Gupteswar

The area of Gupteswar is tribal in its life and orientation. For centuries the cave and the puja has been managed by tribes and you would find that the prasad also comprises banana, and wild berries. A fresh water mountain stream that becomes Kolab river criss-crossing the entire Koraput district runs along the foot-hills of the caves. Everything here has the organic charm of the mountains, untouched by the destruction of a ‘civilized’ modernized society. My best experience here was the interaction with the tribes and the women who sell berries — was overwhelmed by the love that they shared with me though we could not interact on the basis of language.   Sometimes silence is the best communicator.

A family I met

For the lenses

The gates

If I am asked about my experience of Gupteswar,  I would say — surreal. The caves are dark and you have to walk down a flight of steps cut out of the cave rock into a dense darkness. When you reach down and your eyes get accustomed to that darkness, through the lights of dimly lit Deeyas, you will see a huge limestone structure in the form of a shiva-linga staring at you. There are certain explainable aspects of nature and there are many other unexplainable aspects — Gupterswar falls under the category of unexplainable.

Entrance to the caves

The natural limestone Shiva-linga

Lighting up the dark caves

There is a word of caution. When you are walking inside the caves, be a little careful about snakes. Someone was greeted by a small yellow serpent coiled near his feet inside the cave.

Gupteswar

The caves in a close-up

The entrance into Gupteswar area has an interesting goddess with a very deeply entrenched tribal history. She is called — Dalkhai in that area (goddess who likes to eat branches (daal)). You can buy wild berries or branches of Sal leaves for Rs. 2 as a gift for the goddess, who ensures that your journey back to human habitat is safe enough. I met a little girl who appeared to be dressed in a school uniform. She said she goes to a school and also helps her mother to sell the wild berries in this area. Her name is Jhuma is what I could make out from our conversation.

Dalkhai

Jhuma selling wild berries

Share love if you should

My visit to Gupteswar was a revelation in itself. We do not know and neither do we bother to know the secrets of nature very close to human habitat. There is poverty, there is  Maoism, but there is also a deep sense of surrealism which is difficult to be expressed in words, unless you experience it.

As I said Koraput, Jeypore and the areas adjoining are troubled and perennially in news because of Maoist activities. While returning back to Jeypore via Nandapur, there is a police outpost called Ramgiri. As we passed Ramgiri, I had a glimpse of the violence that often rocks the valleys and brings it to front pages of newspapers. Ramgiri outpost had freshly been looted and there was a Maoist massacre just a few days ago

Ramgiri Outpost

Gates of the deserted police outpost

Broken gates and roofs _witnesses of violence

Koraput, Sunabeda and its adjacent areas are a delight for the explorer in you. However, these areas have their own set of risks — the risk is neither from animals, nor from the forests, and nor from the tribes. Here human beings of ‘civilized’ societies shed blood in the name of civilization and in the name of defending cultures. If you have to visit Koraput, you will be appalled by the choices that you have as a tourist — Boriguma, Kolab, Sunabeda’s Sabara Shreekshetra — each is a marvel of human craft and nature’s craftsmanship.

My Koraput series ends here. Will embark on a different journey through life, people, and places in the next article. The cup of  ginger tea has emptied and the clock says it’s past 1. 30 am. I am reminded of a beautiful mountain song sang by Paraja tribes (a famous tribe of this area) and recorded by Gopinath Mohanty in his novel Paraja:

To the rhyme of the maize that is fried
Or the maize that is boiled,
I fashion my song;
Oh my darling who keeps her word,
Lovely is your nose-ring of gold.
My dungudunga wears only a brass string
But it makes exquisite music.…
Oh my darling, do keep your word,
Save me, for I die with your name on my lips,
Oh Jili! (Gopinath Mohanty, Paraja )

Through My Lenses: Odisha Reflections

In my last post I had written about the trip to Puri and peppered it with visuals from Puri highway and Bhubaneswar.

Towards Dusk

Before getting away to a different destination one last remark about evenings at Puri. Puri is a great romantic get away for people who believe in a dream date who takes them to the sea beach in the evening, clear moon lit night and the roar of sometimes Turquoise and sometimes Lapis-Lazuli Bay of Bengal with your loved ones close by. Hmm! Keeping aside the romantic quotients, the Puri sea beach is well endowed with restaurants, inns, bread and breakfast and hotels. In the evening the beach transforms into a makeshift shopping ghetto selling trinkets, accessories, conch and mother-of-pearls, beach wear, kurtas and comfortable sleep-ins. If you are lucky then there might be a Beach festival running in the vicinity of the sea, a real visual bonanza. However, of the less luckier ones like me and for an affordable luxury one might like to hire one of the plastic chairs that cost 10 rupees per head for an hour and enjoy the evening in languorous silence sipping a local chai at 3.00 rupees, interrupted by nothing but the roar of the vast black stillness spreading upto the horizon.

Luxury Hotels by Puri Beach

Hawkers and Stalls

This post will again have a lot of visuals, but not everything is going to be about the ‘beautiful’ and magnificent Odisha.

While the main highways and the roads are being cleaned, decorated and made a visual treat, there are loopholes in the maintenance of housing areas and suburbs. Take for example the most populated suburb Sailashree Vihar in Bhubaneswar. The suburb has  houses and plots sold by the Housing Board Societies. There are attempts to build schools, parks, recreation centres and flower nurseries by the BMC (Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation) at several places throughout the locality. However, there is one basic feature lacking in the region — civic amenities. The by-lanes are mostly half-built, dotted with potholes and ditches, and  left in complete darkness without streetlights.  I understand the necessity of saving electricity, but do not comprehend the idea that roads and lanes should go without streetlamps. I still do not understand which logic is more essential — security of human lives or saving electricity? especially, when there are highways in Bhubaneswar which are lit up day and night with beautiful wrought-iron lamps. These lanes are infested with goons and petty thieves, who take advantage of the darkness and loot ladies wearing gold chains or earrings and snatch purses from people returning from office at late hours. Moreover, these by-lanes are so ill-maintained that most of the times the potholes are filled with mud and dirty water during rainy season,  or else the water pipes which are supposed to water the  saplings planted in the newly built parks, actually end up watering the roads and lanes,  difficult to even swim through to the main highway .

Conserving electricity is a great idea but then the need to conserve water ?  What about hydro-power? Well…what we conserve and how much we conserve also depends on our priorities and our insight into things and requirements great and small. These days in the name of conservation we waste more than saving.

State of a Bylane in Bhubaneswar

A closer snapshot of this gorgeous puddle in the locality would perhaps benefit us a little more. So here are some more pictures of the same spectacle. Instead of parks, the lanes are being generously watered.

Water, water, everywhere...

A Closer Snapshot

Let us move to some other  trivial aspects of my traveler’s diary;  to some aspects of my personal-professional life . I started my career as a Lecturer in a small technical college 180 kms away from Bhubaneswar. I had just completed my Post-graduation and was doing my M.Phil when this job came my way. I considered myself lucky because in those days technical colleges were not very common in Odisha and  that place gave me my first exposure to teaching and also to Internet. I learnt browsing useful articles and educational sites. However, now the scenario has changed — entire landscape of Odisha is flagged with technical colleges. A new college comes up each morning. There are at least 100 engineering colleges in Odisha (while writing this post). You will be surprised to know that more than 9000 seats are vacant at this moment (till Oct, 2009) in these colleges. And the quality of the so called engineering students and facilities in colleges — you should visit once to know better. Now the question arises – how much they deliver….??? People tend to question your credentials if you happen to teach or be associated with any of these colleges at any point of time. I have been questioned by interviewers time and again about the validity of teaching or working in  these places while documenting it in my CV . I make it a point to retain that aspect as my first job experience out of a kind of defiance.

College Buses

On one hand these colleges promise a degree in technical excellence and give a B.Tech or a B.E. degree to the students who opt for it. A degree is fine, but technical excellence is doubtful. Students go out and get some job in corporates and software sector but how far they rise and make a mark for themselves in the long run is an unsolved mystery. Coming to teaching, well there are many good students in Odisha who have either not opted to go out of the state or have neither the means nor the financial support to pursue higher education.  Yes, there is a business and a clear-cut business motive, when the management can employ ten faculties for a cheaper pay packet why would they prefer one ‘academically better’ faculty who would cost them a fortune? What difference does this faculty make? The system is such that whomever and whatsoever the management hires, delivers ultimately in equal measure. I have reasoned about teaching in a ‘mediocre’ (that’s what the puritans call them) technical institution with one reply — “who is to be blamed for the mediocrity of any place? Faculty? Students? Management? Society?” Everyone — collectively.  IITs or Central Universities, if they are to be considered as ‘hallmarks’ of ‘better’ education, are sustained by a collective will of all the above members of a society. Moreover, it is the “R” factor or the “Research” factor which puts them in a class apart. There are many such “technocrats” from the mushrooming technical institutions who may not even know that Linux is an Operating System or that MATLAB can be used to derive the diagrammatic projection of a set of data entered.  But, that is not their fault (not 100%). The same students if they have the passion or the zeal to learn go ahead in life and opt for higher studies and return better equipped. As someone who taught, I confess that I did not myself do my homework as well as I was supposed to have done. The question regarding  why other places in India are not at par in education, is almost like the last instance given in this post regarding the beautification of highways while leaving the by-lanes and the gullies to rot. We are in love with shortcuts and easier paths. How much we put at stake and what we want to achieve is something that the students, the faculties, parents and the government have to decide for themselves. For the time being however there is a mushrooming of engineering colleges which either promise to deliver or deliver in newspapers.

However, it is not the mushrooming of technical institutions or the ‘quality’ of education that affects me. I feel disheartened because of the lesser sympathy or let’s say apathy of the students and the society towards liberal arts, literature, humanities studies and cultural studies. I am not sure how are we going to sustain the superstructure of a megalithic educational setup, without sustaining interest in liberal arts and humanities? In Odisha the trend that seems disturbing is the general tendency to interpret humanities, especially language, literature and aesthetics as no more than Personality Development and Communication Skills or else Call Centre support system. I wish we realize and respect the immense potential concealed in roads lesser trodden, that is our own culture, and the government and centres for higher education consider these subjects with equal seriousness.

I have been taking you through the alleys of higher education and civic amenities. But, now we will venture a little deeper into the smaller towns, villages and the State Highway of Odisha. As we move from Bhubaneswar towards Berhampur (business capital of Southern Odisha, closer to Andhra Pradesh border), there is a diversion from the National Highway that takes you on a State Road towards a smaller district called Nayagarh. If you are a party lover and shopping freak, such destinations may not be your cuppa tea.

NH-5

This too is a part of me

If you are an ardent nature lover, or if you are person on the lookout for adventure, then these are the right destinations or let’s say milestones for a traveler. However, be prepared to spend nights in Dawk-Bungalows or in smaller motels with mosquitoes and lizards. The roads are jerky, and you can find nothing but paddy fields extending as far as your eyes can take you or else small farming villages flanked by large banyan trees, dilapidated shops or else a freshly whitewashed primary school building.

A School Complex

The Primary Schools or Higher Secondary Schools are particularly interesting. Modestly built with limestone or red bricks, these schools are immaculately clean.  The outer courtyard of the schools are neither cemented nor concrete. However, the earth and mud finish of the courtyards are swept and mopped with such perfection that one gets a romantic longing to return back to school days and study in these schools. Especially as townsfolk who have the ‘privilege’ of studying in Public or Convent schools, and who think that there is no education ‘alternative’ or matching our kind of education, these schools invite rethinking. In fact, some of the top educationists, civil servants, IITians, literary figures and doctors, actually come from these ‘humble’ educational set-ups and even ‘humbler’ homes.

Home

Across The Green Fields

There are a lot of things which are undergoing transformation for either good or worse. This time when I traveled to Odisha, I realized that there are still many things that haven’t changed like the evenings, the hamlets lit with one small lantern or the people who spend time gossiping about ‘bigger’ things like politics and terrorism with the local newspapers at their favourite tea and samosa stall.

There are also many things that have changed like the infiltration of liquor and goonda raj on a grander scale or the setting up of international schools charging a whopping 2-3 lakhs per anum from children of well-to-do families, and so on. This article does not aim to elucidate on either.  You might investigate and find that out yourself. The purpose of this write-up was to take you across into a state that remains a mystery for many. From huge multi-star  luxury hotels to the humblest dwellings, you can find all if you have the zeal or the curiosity to look deeper than the obvious.

Odisha is not to be understood as a state whose places are relative to the center or Bhubaneswar. There are many beautiful landscapes which do not come close to the perimeter of the capital.  One has to look beyond the “golden triangle” of Puri, Konark and Bhubaneswar, in order to explore the  essence of the land. I have not been able to capture those landscapes and their life and style for my readers.  Maybe in some other post I might be able to write about those places….

Till then…bon voyage!

9.00 PM CST-Khapoli Local…

Life moves on…

My Cellphone rang and woke me up from my nostalgic travel through memory lanes.

It was around 11.20 pm when we reached Khapoli on a chilly December night. We were traveling by the 9pm Local from CST to Khapoli. I had never traveled out of Mumbai or even in Mumbai in a local train at that hour of the night. It hardly made any difference — trains were bustling with human beings at least up till Kalyan station and even a little later. I could not believe my eyes to see that so many people travel so late from offices to their homes in distant corners of Mumbai suburbs. In Odisha there is not much of a crowd after 9pm. The office-goers who come from smaller towns like Dhenkanal, Angul, Talcher, Khurda to work in offices at Cuttack or Bhubaneswar usually return by the 5: 15 pm local and reach their homes by 7.30-8.00pm.

I used to travel from Bhubaneswar to Angul/Dhenkanal every Saturday-Sunday and sometimes even on holidays in this particular local train for 7 years; first during Graduation and then during my University days in Post graduation and M.Phil. Either my parents or my uncles would be waiting to receive me from the station. Every time I came back home from the hostel on weekends, I would be received in a grand fashion. When grandpa was alive, he would come to pick me up or drop me while on his morning and evening walks to the Dhenkanal station. I would jump down from the boggy, hug him as if I had not seen him for ages (it might be even less than a week) and then happily chatter away about my friends/teachers in college or University till we reached home, where specially made delicious baingan bharta and mushroom deep fried with garlic and steaming hot rice would be eagerly waiting for me. I think I lost my best friend when I lost him. Grandmom and my aunty sadly would lament on my health condition because of malnutrition in the hostel food .

Probably, this nostalgia was the reason that when we were offered a “Special Paper” in PG English, I had enthusiastically opted for a course in “Professional Writing” and chose to write my dissertation on “The Life in Local Trains”. There were diary entires, interviews with commuters, history of the train, letters and statistics collected on the 5:15pm local train for the dissertation. In fact, at the peak of my data collection I had traveled almost everyday by that train to observe and record events and take snaps of various landmarks. I had a very strange, mysterious bonding with the Local trains, as if these trains gave a miniature version of my world.

All these memories of the past years had come drifting towards me when I saw a group of office-goers boarding from different stations, in one compartment on the CST-Khapoli Local. Probably they were using this one compartment for many years and were now friends or perhaps family. Interestingly, one of them carried a mouth organ, another a dafli and another a flute. While some of them sang some Marathi and Hindi numbers, the others’ played on these instruments or listened silently. I thought there was some special occasion and asked one of them sitting close to me that what was the reason for celebration. He replied with a smile; “nothing! we do this everyday! we celebrate everyday…we come from different stations and from different offices, but make it a point to meet in the train, share some joys or our troubles, sing, laugh and get down at our respective stoppages. This has happened for years now.” He grinned and the song : “hai apna dil toh awara na jane kis pe ayega” …wafted in the air. Everyone in the compartment was silent, listening intently to the songs; no one felt like talking…I suppose everyone had some or the other nostalgia to go back to.

These people specially reminded me of an event which I have documented in that dissertation on local trains. It’s the story of one particular gentleman who had traveled in the 5:15pm local from Bhubaneswar to Dhenkanal for 30 years of his service in the AG Office (Attorney General’s Office) in Master Canteen Bhubaneswar. He worked as a senior clerk there.On the day of his retirement from service, the entire compartment (he had boarded the same compartment for the last 30 years) and his fellow office goers had organized a grand farewell for him in the compartment itself. People sang, made speeches on the small tid-bits of their experiences with him, cried, hugged him and then saw him off with tears as he got down at Dhenkanal station on his final day from work. I was very young then to understand the realities of these emotions — because I had everything and everyone around me at that point of time.

But, of course the event had intrigued me and my imagination. I tried to locate his home in the town and went for an interview for the dissertation. He had told me during the interview that more than his family he valued the friends in the train. They shared all his day-to-day stories, gave valuable advice like his son’s job or a daughter’s wedding or official tussles. They had laughed, played cards, gossiped against their office colleagues, sometimes also fought, but most importantly had grown old together. He added that he will not miss office so much as much he would miss his commuting in the train. “Sadly I will not meet my fellow passengers any longer as I will not need to travel from this small town to Bhubaneswar anymore. My friends in the train have shown more patience and have listened to me more than my own family”... I saw his eyes moisten.

The picture of the old gentleman vividly came before my eyes in the CST-Khapoli local train after another 7 long years of my life. I realized seeing these people around me on the train, that there are certain human emotions which cut across narrow language, caste and cultural divides and time. When the politicians and even some theoreticians seek to divide my nation on the basis of caste and language politics, I still can see that the emotion which people have in Odisha is similar to that which they have in Maharastra or maybe elsewhere in the world — the emotional bond of one human being with another.