Last week I was invited at someone’s place to attend a gathering to celebrate the birthday of their son.  It is amazing that how we are making friends now-a-days, indicative of the fact that I am really now quite “old“. This friendship has developed through my son as they go to Kumon and Seema developed acquittance with another Seema, whose son also comes there. That is how we came to know about each other. Is it not strange that we are coming to know about each other thanks to our sons now?! Anyway, I was busy talking to the group there, and quickly realized that most of them were childhood friends. They were talking in great length to each other and were so natural in their talking and behaviour. As they were talking, invariably they would miss me as well as few others who were not from their “old” circle. I did not take it otherwise as it was purely unintentional and perhaps they were also unware of that fact. But it made me to think about my own childhood and my friends of those days. It took me almost 30 years back in time and I started recollecting my old days. And that is how this blog!

I had my childhood spent in two places in Jamshedpur. In the beginning we were living at my Nanaji’s place where we used to live together and there were more than 10 family members living in a joint family of sort. Later on we moved to a separate home and we had a completely different set up resulting in new friendships.

L5/47, Kalindi Road

It was until 1978 that we lived at a place called Kadma. Jamshedpur is mostly influenced by Tatas. In fact the city came to its presence thanks to Tatas so it is bound to have their presence felt in every aspect of that place. If I could say that Tatas are as much present as O2 in air which people breathe in, it would not be exaggeration! This house, where we used to live was situated in a place called Old Farm Area. As the name suggests, it must have been a very open place before, good for farming and slowly as the population exploded, it must have paved the way for residence, “company quarters” as it used to be called. We were on Kalindi Road and the house number was L5-47. Kalindi Road was a small road starting from Main Road and going all the way to a field where it ended. There used to be a covered well in that field and we used to wonder as what could be inside that, till date I have not come to know as what was inside. Many kids would tell me that Britishers killed innocent civilians and buried them in the tank, must have been a made up story but that used to frighten me to no end! The Kalinidi road started from Main Road and there were many points of interest at that junction. First there is a big temple called Rankini Mandir at that intersection. There used to be many “Paan Dukaans“, a typical convenience and smoke store  near the temple. There were at least 6 of them and all of them selling the same identical stuff. Just beside those Paan Dukans there was a gas station, Petrol Pump, what we used to call. Our school’s field started from that point and it went all the way beside the Main Road. That junction also had a shoemaker’s shop called “Mochhi Dukan“. Babujee always had patented his shops and for our shoe repairs or any leather work, we used to come to him. 

This intersection used to become a very important place during Durga Puja as there used to be a very important Puja Pandal erected in open space across the road. Puja Pandal is a tmporaray shelter erected with bamboos and canopies and decorated so beautifully for almost a week  Puja Panadal is a very common arrangement to make a place for many Pujas celebrated by community, like Ganesh Puja, Saraswati Puja and Durga Puja mainly and many other events where public gathering is expected. It used to be water proof and rain or shine it was good for Puja. Of all the Puja pandals, Mandir’s Durga Puja had most significance in our family. We used to go there for Pushpanjali. That used to be a tough exercise for us as we would not eat or drink anything until we had compleed Pushpanjali in that Pandal. It literally meant to offer flowers to God. In Hindu mythology there are both God and Goddess and Durga is one of the Goddesses who is believed to have derived all specialities from many other Gods and Goddesses to overcome the devils. We used to go with Nani to offer the prayer to Goddess Durga on Maha Astami (8th day of the Navarati festival).  After that we would spend couple of hours in and around the Pandal enjoying the foods, toys, shops and all other festive attractions.

Durga Puja used to be a very important event in my life. In front of our house there was a huge open field all the way upto the Main Road. I will write about the Puja in more details later on. Also our school Kadma Boys Middle School was very much visible from our house. It was so visible that when I was in grade 2, I would be watching all the time my house from the main door of the class room. We used to have two shifts in the school and every month the shift used to interchange. I used to go to home during the recess time and that used to be a good time to catch up with the latest happenings in home. But sometimes I used to be in school only. Particularly when we moved to the new house, we were more on our own and we would hardly go to our old house which we then started calling as Nani Ghar. 

Nursery School and Ganesh Puja Maidan 

Before I start recollecting my days in Middle school, I want to go back couple of years back when I was in Nursery school near Ganesh Puja Maidan.  That was a school run in two houses together by one Mrs. Sinha. I do not have a very clear memory of those days but I have faint memories of few incidents in that school. For a year Manoj and I were together in the school. And there were two brothers living in a house behind our street called Sanjay and Ajay. Ajay was of Manoj’s age and we used to go together to school. It used to be a good walk and we would talk so many things together while on our way to the school. Ajay was very matured and he used to talk things ahead of his time. Incidentally this was the same nursey school where Ma and Ashok Mama (and perhaps Santosh Mama and Bharti Mausee too) had also studied. Ma used to share with me lots of  funny stories about that school. Let me recollect a few which Ma had told me about her childhood. It so happened that once it rained very heavy and Ma and Ashok Mama were caught in their way to home. As they were completely wet and all their books and bags were wet too, they started playing . One interesting thing during the rainy season used to be the drainage channels which we used to call as “Nalee“. The city is very well planned and it has nice wide streets and beside each house there are “Nalees” to have a good drainage. The water flow in those Nalees used to be very forceful and one could enjoy watching the water flowing in it. I also used to enjoy like all the other kids by putting some flowers, leaves, barnches of trees which would fall after heavy storm and rain or paper baots (“naav“) in the stream of water and following it all the way by running beside the Nalee. Ma and Ashok Mama being of the same like any other kids of that age started enjoying the water. However, they went a step ahead and started putting their slippers, books and eventually the entire school bag in the water and started seeing the free flow of those items in the stream. Finally when they reched home, Nani was shocked to see them coming empty handed! I do not remember what Ma told me about the events which took place after that, but then that is anyone’s guess!

Coming back to the rainy seasons, we used to have rain coat and umbrella. Invaiably in a stormy season, our umbrella would turn the other way and we would be busy fixing that and almost always it resulted in breaking of some of the frames. But we used to have lots of fun standing under a big tree and getting wet little bit from the big water drops falling from the tree while it was raining heavily outside. I used to watch above and there used to be crows and other birds also getting little bit wet and seating on the branches. Then if it was even stronger wind it resulted in some branches of trees falling apart or some papers or clothes flying in the sky. The traffic in the street used to come to a standstill during such waether. I remember once we were on our way back to home. The weather was very cloudy and strong wind was blowing across. It was about to rain. We were thinking of getting a shelter under a big tree. In these inclement weather we used to carry umbrell but invariably it used to turn upside with few sokes breaking and at times if we did not hold that tight, it used to fly away. We used to be very afraid of using umbrella on a windy day. Suddenly we saw Babujee on the other side of the road. We screamed and he stopped for us. Manoj and Ajay crossed the road but I almost  ran behind them without checking the traffic on both sides, something which I am busy teaching Yash now-a-days! There was one scooter coming at a fairly good speed and he had to apply brake just to avoid an accident very narrowly. I was terified and on top of that, the person yelled at me. I could not see him eye to eye. Later on I saw that same person again at “Punditji Ka Dukan“. There used to be a book store in Kadma market owned by one Punditji but it was so famous that it had become a landmark of the market. If someone had to give direcion, he would use Punditji Ka Dukan as a reference. The best part was that almost all our teachers were found there in the evenings seating on benches outside. It was more of a kind of Adda for a group of adults beside the book store. Invariably I used to come across our “heddu“, our  head master, Ram Charitra Singh and few other teachers as well there. I used to be so terrified to face our teachers and we used to be well behaved and concsious. Sometimes few of them would talk to Babujee and would associate my being his son with the fact that I am also a student of his class. But those were happenings of later years. That day when I was there  I saw that person there in that shop whom I had a narrow escape the other day near my nursery school. I just wanted to run away and hide in one corner as I was so nervous. That person’s heart melted to see me behave like that and he took me to a nearby Paan dukan and got me chocolates to befriend with me.

Nursery school was a very homely kind of place for me. I usually would be seating in the last row of the class and sleep for whole time. Once I got up and asked for milk  very loudly - “Duddhu“. The teacher did not mind and continued the class but I insisted for couple of times more and then again went back to sleep. Milk was very favourite to me and  I used to drink that a lot. The setting up of Ganesh Puja pandal used to be one of my favourite activities to watch from the classroom. I remember once I watched for almost half an hour the unloading of bamboos from a truck in the middle of the field. I raely used to enjoy the class and always loved to watch activities going on outsie the window. In the recess time we used to have lots of fun. We used to play in the same Ganesh Puja maidan. Just beside that school was a  place called “Mangal Singh Ka Akhada“ . As that name was very terrifying, I had developed a very monster like image of that person. I would never ever go close to that place for the fear that I might encounter Mangal Singh. someone had told me that he does not mind killing anyone. I came to know about him later that he had basically encroached that piece of that land and to justify his cause he started one Akhada there. I saw that person in real when I grew up and I was so curious but it was not that great to watch him, to be honest for he was not even close to be a giant or monster like persron!  

We used to catch butterflies during our recess time. There used to be one of our favourite called Gandhee Titlee. I do not know why we termed that so, but it used to be fairly easy to catch. All one had to do was patiently go behind that while it was busy sucking the juice from the flower and in a quick swing of hand catch the butterfly by folding the palm. Once caught they used to try their best to escape and therefore the wings would vibrate in a very quick motion but we used to have other motive. Someone had spread a trick that if we buried only the heads of that butterfly, it would become coins next day. Many butterlies must have scrificed their lives to make me realize finally that it was nothing but a wrong belief. I used to feel very bad whenever I killed them but the curiousity of seeing it beome coin used to take over the emotions! 

I left Nursery school and started my 2nd grade at Kadma Boys Middle school. Before that I had to appear in one examination of Grade 1 with other students. I had never appeared in any such examination before. Before I could finish everything, one teacher came and virtually snatched the paper from me. I did not like his rude behaviour. Later on I was explaining that to Ma and I described that teacher’s nose like a parrot and so aptly started calling him Tota sirjee.I saw him many times later and each time he reminded me of that incident.

Topiwala Sirjee 

My first class teacher was one Mr. S.K.Sinha and he used to wear pure white dhoti, kurta and a Gandhi cap all made of khadee. He was called Topiwala sirjee. He was very strict and ahardwaorking teacher. I remember he used to carry a ruler with him all the time and that was his weapon to punish the students if they did not cmplete the homework or were not attentive in the class. I was put in the front seat by him as Nanaji had requested him in person. Those days parents used to request teachers to punish if we did not pay attention ot the teachers in the class, so much of trust they had on teachers!  But there was a big problem.

I was asked to seat in the front seat . I was so homesick that I used to always watch the home through the doors. I would watch who came out in varandah of our home and what else was happening in and around my house. I used to be more focussed at all those kind of activities than what was going on in the class room! I would always see my home through the doors and he was very annoyed to see that I was not at all attentive in the class but was watching out all the time!  I do not know why but I used to enjoy watching who came out or what was happening at my home, more than anything else. Finally Topiwala sirjee gave up and he moved me to the last bench. That place was den of all the stalwarts who had been in the class for few years atleast. Just like all the big particles settle down at the bottom, so were these big burly boys! One of them was Balkrishna Rao who was at least 5 years older than me and he was much like an adult. He used to make me cry by doing some of the activities which were more in line with gays and that used to make me so embarassed in the class. But at that age I was a very shy and timid child. I could not generate enough guts to complain to any of my teachers or in home to anybody. I could see my house from there through the doors.  One positive development was that I could not see my house from there anymore. Topiwala sirjee was so hardworking that he gave us tons of homework before Chhuttee -summer break. And he also cautioned that he would visit each one of us during the break. He indeed came to see me also once and fortunatley I had finished my homeowrk and was sleeping that afternoon. He discussed with Nanaji about my progress over tea and finally he left with satisfaction. Where would we come across teachers with so much of sincerity, dedication and concern for his students? As I grew up, I had so much of respect for him but soon he retired and once in a while I used to see him in Kadma Bazaar.

As I moved to my next grade, I had a new class teacher called Pandey. He was not that impressive but was very strict. He never tolerated any kind of noise in the class. Most of the times he used to give us some nice talk on general topics. I rememeber, once he was explaining about kid’s mind. He gave an analogy for a child’s mind to be a white sheet where we could put nice colours and images which will become parmanent forever. Same way, he warned us that we should think and assimilate all good things in mind because that will remain with us forever. Just like no one likes to see dirty and ugly things on a white sheet, we should also avoid the same in our mind. How true was his analogy and his that talk has been in mind so fresh even till date, after almost 30 years!

During that period I had many friends in my neighbourhood. Most of them used to live in Kalindi road. There were many but I used to play mostly with Nupa, Bapi, Bisu, Elvis, Nanu and few more. My friend circle was mostly kids from lower middle or lower income families. The entire neighbourhood was not that great. Just behind us were L/4 type quarters and one street below were N1 type quarters - one room house wherein mostly workers and employees of low income group used to live in. The overall set up was very terrible least I could say. But we had no other option but to play with them. Most of the kids were not serious about studies and sometime they would even miss the school and their parents were not bothered. The education was free from Tatas and therefore no one had any pain and perhaps they did not find study so valueable. Evening time used to be full of fun as we used to play with the kids. I could not get along very well with most of the kids. I wanted to dominate everyone and also was very possesive of my stuff which most of the kids did not like. But another problem was that Manoj and I had only one year difference and most of his friends wanted to continue friendship with him and skip me. I was left with no other option but start playing with girls and kids of younger age than me. There were some of the kids who were not clean and they used to have very foul language. But that was the price we had to pay.

In the school  too the students were mostly from lower income group and while some of them were serious about studies most of them were just there for the heck of it. Some of them were much older to be in the class but in a school running for free, no one was very concerned for these problems. Most of the students were not that serious about studies. Some of the older kids were a nuisance and they always shared with us things which we wee supposed to know couple of years ahead. Overall, it had a mixed kind of effect, while we were maturing much faster, we could not comprehend that what effect it might have on kid’s mind if he is not matured enough to understand them. But whatever, I used to have lots of fun. Those days Kalindi Road was not pitch road. It used to have red coloured gravels which was called Murum. I remember running on that kind of road had its own pitfalls, like I used to skid or fall and would be bleeding. The best part used to be rainy time when water used to flow like a stream on the road and watching the colour of water turning into red used to have a great joy. I used to be so happy during the cloudy days and my creative side used to be at its peak. I invariably would like to draw something or paint. May be the inspiration used to come from the different combination of shiny colours on the big canvas like sky. Or since we all used to be confined inside the doors, I had nothing better to do anyway!

In the summer time whenever it rained, some of the kids would cover their heads and run to catch the mangos, Bel or guvavas falling fom the trees. There used to be lots of action during the rainy days. Ma, Nani and Mausi used to rush to get the clothes drying up in Aangan or get the pickles or genhu (wheat, Nani used to call that as Gahum) inside before it started raining. Normally the windows would start closing by the storms or strong winds and that will alert everyone about rain which was likely to follow. Those sounds used to trigger lots of actions thereafter. Normally we used to close all the doors and windows and lights were up. We used to feel very secured inside. Afterwords, when rain would stop, I used to have lots of fun watching the refreshing look all over. Of so many trees all over, Gulmohar used to be my favourite one. It used to be fully covered with colourful flowers. After the storm the ground used to be full of those flowers and that was a sheer joy to behold. The sky used to be clear but still some clouds would prevent the sun to throw light and as a result shiny sky used to make it so soothing to see anywhere. We used to play with broken branches of the trees and overall that usd to be the best time to have fun. Slowly life resumed after the rain for me and for so many others. People who had taken shelters under the trees used to start moving back to their destinations. The birds used to be back in the sky. There always used to be stray cows, dogs, goats and cats everywhere and they also would start coming back to their normal action. When I compare with the PVR receivers where one could pause the live TV and resume back afterwords, the rainy days in my childhood could compare well with that!  

Duing one of those rainy days I was home and Mausi had come back from school. She had taken a new bus named Rajnigandha. Around that time the long red bus had stopped and private mini busses started plying on the roads.Each of those buses used to have names like Jai Hind, Azaad Hind, Paalki, Khemka and what not. We had developed a very interseting passion with these buses as we wanted to collect the tickets of these buses. The ticket used to be on the holed computer papers and printed on that. Now I can associate the fact that back in those days the computers used to have punched sheets for the programs to run and once the change in programs were made those sheets became useless. The bus owners must have found it a cheap resource to print the tickets on that. But overall that used to give us so much of happiness that we almost fell in love with that. We started collecting the bus tickets of different buses. The school bus Rajnigandha had started a new kind of ticket and we were eager to collect that. When Mausi told me that it is with her, we could not stop ourselves and started running behind her. Meanwhile it was about to rain and so Ma left the Hansua (knife with stand fo cutting vegetables) open and I fell near that. It was a coincidence that my palm fell on the cutting edge of Hansua.  It started bleeding profusely. I startd crying and Poonam started screamin. Ma thought for a while that it must be something what used to happen daily in home, when we used to hit each other and cry and calling Ma. She did not pay any attention to that until Poonam started screaming - Khoon, Khoon….! Ma and Nani rushed to me. Neither Nana, Mama or Baujee were in home. There used to be a neighbour whom we used to call as Vinit Mausa, he and Babban were called and they took me in the middle seat and I was taken to the dispensary on his Yezdi motorcyle. It was drizzling and I could see the guilt, anxiety and sorrow in Ma’s face. When I reached in dispensery, it would normally take a while to get all the formalities completed but doctor immediately asked me to be taken to the dressing area where I was given 7 stitches and little did I knwo at that point that I would neve be able to fold my that finger ever in my life. Till date I can not fold my thumb on right hand. I had to face so much of problem afterwords as I could not hold pen in my normal way and I had to start a new style. It used to hurt whenever I touched that particular spot but I do not know what went wrong but it could neve be recovered.

When I came home, Ma was so anxious to know as what had really happened. I had a big white bandage all over my palm. Every one in home was terrified and Mausi was very apologatic and she was hugging me. I did not know how to react as I had gone through a traumatic expereicne. Later on when Nanaji and Babujee came they also had lots of symapthy for me. In a way I started enjoying so much of attention and care or me! I remember that Ma sked me to seat right in front of the Chulha, while she was cooking food. I did no hav to study now. I was given a full glass of milk with creams on top of it - chhalee, as we used to call that. Normally chhalee was reserved for Manoj as he was considered by Ma as slightly weaker and she wanted to give more attention to his health.

Chulha

Those days we used to have a coal firing stove made out of buckets. The design was such that at may be one fourth from the top of the bucket, holes were made diametrically on both sides and iron rods were fixed diametrically across in those holes which would support the coal. Much like a charcoal BBQ grill. Then the entire top portion above the grills were thickened with clays and there used to be three pojected tops on the top so that cooking utensils could stay firm. I used to enjoy the preparation of the chulha with Ma. She used to do that at the exteme end of the aangan (courtyad). The activity was called chulha pajarna.

Ma would put some wood pieces first and then on top of that coal briquets were put. Sometimes she used a hammer to break them in smaller pieces. She used to put pieces of coal on top of each other in such a way that there used to be enough room for ventilation. Then some kerosene oil was spread and lastly firing the chulha with a match stick. Match box was kept dry and I remember so vividly the horse face made on the cover of the match boxes, so much that it has frozen in my mind and whenever I think of matchboxes, it flashes an image in my mind of that horse! After it required a draft to ignite the coal and wood pieces in chulha, so we would  fan from the bottom open space, from where normally the ashes were removed. The fanning action from below used to take the flame and heat to the top side and that is how the coal pieces used to start igniting. The whole process used to generate a lots of smoke and took almost 15 minutes. In all chulha could stand out as one of the best indigeneously developed equipment which was in action for our day-to-day use.

Each day Ma had to do that twice, once in the early morning and then in the evening-  everyday, non stop for years and years! Rain or shine, feeling good or bad, sick or otherwise, she used to do that! How many of modern peple can even think of doing this in the dark morning of a winter season? Ma used to prepare Nastaa for Babujee early morning before 5:30 on this chulha! Which meant that she had to get up much earlier than that. Once the Chuha was ready, it used to have a handle and she would pick it up and bring inside home. In the process one or two coal pieces would fall and I would be quick to put water on that and hear the chhunn sound and gulf of steam coming out from it! There used to be a very interesting game I played together with Ma called chhunn chhunn Baja. At the end of cooking when all the rotis were baked, the iron plate on which roti used to be heated, called tawa, remained very hot. Ma would keep us at a distance and put water on that which will sound like chhunn….. and lots of steam evaporating all over, enough to delight me! I used to watch that every day. In fact the entire Rotee preparation was a fun to watch. The dough preparation used to be a fun fo me. Ma would use a big open faced utensil called adhaiya and put 4-5 cups of wheat flour. The measuring cup used to be the empty coconut oil can, normally Shalimaar. The process of getting the top emoved was a very crude metod which used to generate shriiling sound. I had done couple of times. Whhat I needed was a rough surface and then run the top surface endlessly until with wearing action the top lid would break away from the can, resulting in a perfect measuring cup!

Once Ma had put the wheat flour in the adhaiya she used to make a hole in the  middle and pour water in that empty space and start putting flour on top of it until it had covered the entire water. Then the entire outer circle would become an empty and the middle portion as an island with flour covering the water. Then Ma would just make a smal hole somewhere and the water started flowing out from there making it look like an island. It may sound silly now but back in those days with no TV, no cartoons and no form of entertainmnt for kids, this used to be one of the most interesting and exciting game for us! 

I was extremely busy in last one month in various activities. There are many important events to share. Let me start from the most recent one.

August 22, 2005

I donated blood today. I have always thought of donating once a year ever since Ma had been to hospital and she needed bottles of blood transfusion. But I could not keep my promise to myself for a very silly reason that I am afraid of seeing blood. But today was a day when we had blood donation camp in our building itself. Since morning, I was contemplating the idea of donating but my inner conflict did not let me go until 3:00 PM when I could generate enough courage and went for this. When I went for registration, perhaps I was the last one for the day as they were closing at 3:30 PM. There were series of questions to be answered. After a test for iron level in my blood, I was asked to wait in a line for my turn. I was pleasantly surprised to see couple of my office friends lying and donating blood.

I am so scared of blood that I asked them to hide it from me as I could not have seen that. During the process of donation, one of the nurses came to me and asked me whether I was alright because I was kind of nervous! When I told the reason she encouraged me and that helped me to continue further without much problems. Finally it was over in five and half minutes only! Then there was a wait and so on and finally I was offered a glass of juice and some snacks. I did not feel like eating anything and took juice instead and that was it! I did not realize how the whole process was over in less than an hour or so! The whole arrangement was very nicely done.

When I came back from office, Hursh, Yash and Seema were waiting to pick me up from GO station. Seema had dropped me in the morning at station as she wanted to keep the car for the day. Hursh was very excited to hear that I had donated blood. He was one who had encouraged me once after hearing an advertisement on blood donation on radio, which concluded saying that “… it is sad that only 3% of eligible Canadians donate blood considering that we all have that!” That line is very awakening and Hursh asked me immediately that “Dad have you ever donated blood?” I told him that I had donated couple of times when I was young but not in the recent time. Today I was a proud father before my sons!  I resolved to myself that I will donate once a year now on.

I started recalling my last blood donation which was in year 1995 and that was for Ma. She needed nearly 5-6 bottles of blood to be transfused before each chemotherapy! We did not have many people to donate blood so we had to depend on others for this. The blood bank in Jamshedpur had reserve of blood and we managed from that. But I thought of that very deeply and thanked many from the bigger family of humankind as a whole; where there are many noble members who work selflessly and stand for a cause. Thanks to their donation, and before donation their concern for people at large, that we could go ahead with Ma’s treatment. It was contribution of those people which enabled us to utilize when we needed it the most! I had promised to myself that beside repaying some of the debt by donating the blood for humankind I should be of some use to others as well. I had been dragging away from that and unfortunately it never materialized. That was then but I am proud to say I am on a different course now! I often ask myself, how much am I doing for others without any selfish desire? I don’t feel satisfied with the answer myself, a lot is desired to be done!

August 21, 2005

It was almost 3 years that I had spoken to Manikant Nana. And what an interesting conversation it turned out to be! Let me first elaborate as who he is. When I was in my youth, I used to hear about one gentleman who used to live in the USA and was originally from my mother’s village Hariharpur. This person had deep interest in the village and would visit once in a while and talk to every single person of the village in the most humble way.

As I was growing up, I saw a coloured photograph of Ma and few other family members taken by him. I would question myself that can there be a person so caring to bring happiness in everyone’s life, agreed momentarily only but every time he could. When I was in my teens, I heard that he came down all the way to Hariharpur to marry off his daughter. Also he would spend hours and hours with my Nanaji, whenever he visited Hariharpur. He would take photographs, take video recordings and kind of interviews of all the prominent people of the village and record in voice recorder. I was told that he is in the process of writing a book an that is what=y he was compiling everything. 

When I left India, Nanaji gave me his phone number and asked me to talk to him should I need any help. When I came to Canada my beginning was very shaky and I found people here very different in their attitude. As most of my friends who were here for years, I noticed that their was a very different attitude. Let us put in this way, people here are very objective and straightforward, they speak their minds. Back in those days I was not prepared for such conversation as people would ask me directly as what help did I need or some would say simply what kind of help he could provide. To me all these appeared as if people understood my calls as if I needed help from them. I was little taken by surprise and resolved to myself that until I stood on own feet, I would not bother calling anyone again.

I felt that I had somehow established myself well in this country around 2000 and then I started calling all my friends in this part of the world. also by that time I had gone through a lot of transformation in my personality and what appeared to be very sharp in my early days they started blurring down to a large extent as I started understanding the intent of people. During those days I called Manikant Nana.He immediately recognized me though we have never met each other. We talked for over 2 hours in our first conversation. He talked about many things and we went over many topics. We have a few common interests such as Hariharpur, Mithila samaj and likes. We would correspond through e-mails and phones once in a while and it went on regularly for next couple of years. Then Nanaji died in year 2002. Manikant Nana is perhaps the biggest admirer of Nanaji’s contribution to the Hariharpur samaj and in general he admires his overall vision and achievements in life. He was saddened by his demise and we had few more correspondence and then somehow we did not talk or correspond for next almost 2 years. Mainly it was because of my mistake as I had changed my job and moved from my previous home to another one an all my co-ordinates had changed. Right from office e-mail to my phone numbers. when we were talking, I came to know that he had tried couple of times to reach to me but with no success.

Recently, I had started writing my memoirs of childhood and I was writing a lot about Hariharpur and therefore my memories were very fresh. I had to ask and verify many information as well. He seem to have so much information about Mithila and Hariharpur that we went on. He clarified many of my information and also told me so many interesting information about my Nanaji’s childhood. That has generated lots of work for me as I need to correct many of my blogs where I have put wrong information. He has amazing collection of stuff related to Hariharpur and I requested him to archive all those stuff on more modern media such as DVD or CDs. He needed some information from me and hopefully he will not find them so difficult as I am planning to send him all the details soon. He mentioned that he has video recordings, photographs and voice recorded of many people including my Nanaji with him. He has complete family trees of all the families of village. What a remarkable person he is! He told me that he was not sure who will benefit from that or who will carry them on but at least he has satisfaction that in next 200-300 years people of that village ever wanted to know more about their roots(which I am sure will happen), this will be a priceless contribution. I am very impressed by his passion for these. I was overjoyed when he shared so many interesting stories about Hariharpur and related ones. I have requested him to start a blog on that but if he does not, I will try to capture them as much as I would be able to. 

August 20, 2005

I became PMP certified. On Saturday I took the Project Management Professional examination at Prometric Centre at London, Ontario. Soon you would be able to see my name here. I am going through a very crucial juncture in my professional career. I started this mis-adventure in IT about 8 years back and now have started realizing that this was never my career goal. At the best it could have been a means to achieve my ultimate career goals but not something where I would have stuck, in a way! At this point I myself do not know as what are my goals and which way I want to go in my career path. Everything is very murky. I am trying to get some direction and so these certifications. Let us see how it shapes up in future.

I had missed my first PMP examination as I forgot to show up on that day. Let me explain further, as it sounds unbelievable but it is true! I had got “go ahead” from PMI in December 2004 itself and had registered for the examination somewhere that time. But I always found myself not ready yet, and kept on postponing. Finally, it happened a little too often and so the miss! I was shocked that I had lost nearly $500 as fee! But then next moment I determined that I have to conquer this in my next attempt, no matter how much efforts were needed! I contacted PMI and they did not even consider it as re-examination but as a new examination and I was again charged nearly $430 US, which roughly translates into $500 Cdn.

Meanwhile, my team lead Ron Naidoo cleared the examination. He had followed my advise, just like Manmeet Singh and Tunji Oreyingbo had. Everyone who took my advice had become PMP except me. Anyhow, the process to get a confirmation from PMI took a long time and finally I obtained confirmation on Wednesday, August 17th. I went to schedule the exam to Prometric site and it was all full. Since 2004 pattern is getting over by end of August, everyone wanted to take before that and so the rush! I was not sure what to do and suddenly I found slots available at London, Ontario centre. I immediately booked for Saturday at 1:00 PM.

I had now only over two days in my hand to prepare. But I was determined to clear this examination anyhow so started studying like crazy in my office and home. I was almost confident about the outcome a day before on Friday evening but as it was late in the evening on Friday, a day before the examination, my confidence started dimming. I had lot to complete but I did not have time! I finally resolved myself that I was not going to study a whole lot more but would rather focus on whatever I had covered until that point! I went to bed around 12:00 and next day morning I got up late around 8:30. I kept my cool and just focused on whatever I had studied so far. I had to drive a long distance, nearly 160 miles. Therefore, I took bath and was ready by 10:00 to start for London.

Initially, I had thought of taking everyone there as they could have enjoyed a new place but then I shot down that idea and went all alone. I had burnt a new music CD and the songs were very soothing and the driving was much relaxed and enjoyable. Half way through I had regained my confidence and started taking my own mock examination. I guess that made the whole difference. I learned a new technique now which works very well for me. I should stop my revision and studying book and other course materials at least by late evening before the day of examination. After that I should focus on something similar, like take my own mock examination. That way I could come to know more about my weaknesses and comfort level as well.

Anyhow, when I took the exit from 401 for London, Mapquest’s direction really let me down. It had shown Highbury N exit and then mentioned that take Highbury South, and when I continued on Highbury South for almost 15 minutes, I started realizing that I was crossing remote villages. I made a turn and went the other way and then reached the centre in next half an hour. I did a good thing by keeping nearly 1 hour margin.

The examination centre had many people waiting to take the examination like they had nearly 5 people. Finally my examination started at 1:00 PM. I did not even know how I had spent 3 hours without even realizing that! The questions were very straightforward but lengthy. Options for answer were very close and that used to take a lot of time as one had to read again and again the lengthy questions! There were words like Most, First, Except, Only etc., to make the things worse. As most of the options could be right, one had to apply his judgment to get the option which fitted well for adjectives First or Only and likes. I finished all my 200 questions in nearly 3.5 hours. But I had nearly 60 questions marked for review. I went over again and just clicked on Finish button around 5:00 PM and it took almost a minute to tell me “Pass” . I was very relaxed as my hard work had finally paid off!

I immediately called Seema after the exam and she was very happy to hear the outcome as well. Then I drove back very relaxed but was feeling very hungry as I had not taken any food since morning (did not feel like!). But Seema had planned to visit someone so wanted to reach home as soon as possible. Once I reached home, the best reaction was from Yash who sat on my lap and asked, “Papa exam pass kar liya?”  

August 17, 2005

Hursh’s playoff has started and he did not do very good in last game. Though his team tied with arguably the best team in his league but the goal tending by him was not that great. He was little shaky and may be pressure was telling on him. All though this season he had done very good goal tending and he became the first choice for his coach but perhaps he could not keep the tempo for the final playoff. Hopefully he will do better in the rest of playoff games and reach into semifinal stage. Here are comments from his coach about his goaltending from almost every game he has played:

….From what I saw last night during the practice and scrimmage(s) I think we’re ready for the play-offs, Hursh again was phenomenal while I was going over some drills with him and when I looked over to check on the other boys doing their drills they were almost flawlessly. …..I would like to have Hursh in net on Wednesday he is on a hot streak right now!!! 

We had outstanding goal-tending by Hursh in both the first and second half, Hursh caught so many high flying balls tonight I think he’ll have sore hands tomorrow!!! I have never seen so many incredible saves by one goal tender this season!!! great job guys!!!  Besides all of those great goals and great saves we had some fancy footwork out there tonight by Radi and Matthew and Adam, tons of pullbacks which led to at least 3 scoring chances and so much passing it was hard to follow the ball at times!!! 

We had stellar goal-tending in the first half by Nicholas and Hursh in the second between the two of them they only let in one goal the whole game way to go guys!!!

Just about everyone has had a chance to play in net this season and I have had some fantastic goal-tending that everyone should be very proud of, I would like to go into the playoffs with 4 goalies who will play in each of the games, the 4 players I have chosen are Hursh, Jason, Sean and Nicholas.  It was not an easy choice to make as we have also seen phenomenal goal-tending from Jordan, Reid, Raymond, Adam, Matthew and Ryan.  But I’m confident that with these players playing out and any one of either Hursh, Jason, Nicholas or Sean between the pipes we will do wonderfully in the playoffs!!! 

I have Hursh down as one of my goalies this week and hopefully I’ll see as many fantastic saves as I saw him make at practice last night, but I still need one more goalie for the game. 

…and I can’t forget the wonderful job the 2 goal tenders did tonight great job Jordan and again Hursh I saw you both make some great saves to keep us in the game!!! 

…and the second goal was scored by Matthew we also had fantastic goal-tending by Hursh in the first half and Raymond in the second…

He is perhaps shaping up very well as a goalie but he was not that sharp in the first playoff game. He is very exciting player though and would charge up the team quite well. He boosts up the team a lot and everyone is very friendly with him. But his interest is shifting more towards baseball now and he is requesting me to put him in baseball team next year and not soccer. We will see about that.

On other fronts Hursh is maturing very fast now. One of these days he called me directly on my office phone number and asked something like - ” Dad, I am at your canada.com site and how do I see the mails?”

He wanted to check the mail from his coach, which she sends normally after every game. I gave him the instructions over phone and he followed them exactly and he ends his conversation like this - ” OK, I am in now. Thanks. Bye Dad!”

How quickly this little sweet chubby boy has transformed and slowly entering in his youth slowly now! He is eight now! I know it is little far but he would be there sooner than that age, he is maturing much faster. He has a photographic memory and often he would ask very detailed question and his mom would become very irritated as she does not understand as what he is talking about! He would ask questions more for clarification purpose though, like ” Dad, you remember we had been to States last time and there was a shop with Dunkin and we stopped there and ….and so on ..!” I understand his problem, because I am exactly like him, I love discussion with no purpose, like I love recalling old days and just discuss about that in the same way! I am to be blamed for what has transfered in him through my genes! Seema would truncate his discussion by asking questions like ” OK, yes, then what…what is your question, I don’t remember, but you tell me what is your question?” thinking that he wanted to recall about that trip and some related question he wanted to ask. But he would end very quietly -” No, I was just asking about that because we had been to that place!” Seema would become completely frustrated and pull him up a lot. And he would be very irritated now. He loves when I support him saying something like -” Yes and do you remember that day we had some donuts there and Yash had to go to washroom…” etc. and he would become very delighted in going back in the time! He is so close to my personality! Strange! 

I remember he has been very creative since he was 5 years or so. Once he asked me that -”Dad you know in Thursday my name is there, kind of ..!” And he went on clarifying that, “ if you take out T and day from that it is my name!”  What can I say, I was little surprised to see his creativity! Then I took him once to baseball game last year as I had got a complimentary VIP pass from my office for two and I and Hursh went there. Of course it was embarrassing for both of us, particularly for me as I did not understand any bit of that game and he was asking me too may questions about game and I had no clues. All these were happening in the VIP row, where serious fans were seating! But that had its own impact and ever since that Hursh has been so engrossed in games, soccer, NHL, NBA, CFL and MLB that he knows everything about these leagues. He knows all the rules about theses games and all he has learned by himself. He knows their websites and it is amazing that he keeps latest information about the team rankings and what not. Once we were at Murali’s place and he was sharing with us about his recent visit to Air Canada centre to watch NBA game as he had also got a pass from his office. Before he could say anything, Hursh updated him with score breakups at each quarter and who all were top scorers! Murali could not believe that how Hursh could remember so much about once particular game! He has amazing memory and inclination to his interests.

Recently he has started developing interest in Mathematics and English. He has been doing better and better in Maths at Kumon. But he is not doing so well in English though. But I am sure that he would improve in that as well, once he develops interest in that!

August 16, 2005

I discovered on web one of my relatives. It is a very interesting story! Let me share with you. I was looking for some details on Hariharpur as I wanted to see that if someone else also has similar interest as mine. I used google and I checked out one of the links. It took me to a guest book of a site where one Pranav Shankar has mentioned that his village is Hariharpur and his family is in Bokaro, presently he is in Dubai. It immediately reminded me of Arun Mama and his son. I had heard about this boy that he is doing so well and has been living in Dubai for quite sometime. I took a chance and sent him a mail. I was pretty sure about him being Arun Mama’s son though I did not know his real name and if I remember well, he is more known by name Munna in his home. But perhaps I might be wrong on that name as well, for sure I did not know his real name. However, I was not sure about his e-mail.

It was Friday and when I came back on Monday there was a mail seating in my inbox from Pranav Shankar. I was very eager to read his reply. It was a very long e-mail and I could not believe the content of the mail. he wrote a very good English, almost flawless and more than his vocabulary and grammar, it was the content which touched me deep inside. I was not able to believe that someone of this young age could have so many brilliant ideas and determination to achieve so many goals in life. He is doing exceedingly well and he has transformed the whole family almost. I was very impressed by his reply and did not know how to reply. I took a print out of his e-mail and read again and again as it had touched my emotions. This boy had done something impossible for his family. He had helped his family to get his first sister married and for the other three sisters not only he is taking care of educational cost but even more importantly is giving a direction to the career. In such a competitive age in India, he has craved a career plan for each one of them. His dream to make his middle class family to a business class family really touched me to deep. I see a fire in him. He will do so many wonderful things in his life, I am sure. I was truly impressed, considering the kind of family background he has. I felt so good for Arun Mama as finally he must have some smile in his face! though he has been one person who always had smile at his face but deep inside he must have been a very devastated person. after all he had no life of his own for so many years, first he had to see all his four sisters married and then once he was over from that he had his own daughters growing up! Meanwhile the realities in Hariharpur have changed and his parents (Doodh Baba, as I used to call him when I was young!) could no longer live in village and depend on agriculture. I guess under all these odds Pranav did something extra ordinary and he has a long way to go, I am sure. He sent me his photograph, I am sharing that here.

I could have not believed such a wonder through web ever in my life!

August 3, 2005

I had met a person called Piyush Jha accidentally.  It was day of BACA picnic and one of our friends Rajesh Jha’s car broke down. Initially we thought that it was battery problem and we arranged for a booster cable and his car started. everything seemed to be going well until at some point his car again broke down and for good this time. There wee some more members coming behind his car and they gave him and his family ride to Mississauga. I have CAA Plus membership and he contacted me as he wanted to tow the car to a garage in Mississauga. It was a very funny incident as he asked me to call CAA and say pretend that as if I was driving my friend’s car which has broken down and they would send the towing truck. But as I started so, the CAA person asked me too many details about the car and perhaps she became suspicious of some foul play and she asked me to be there at the site with a photo id. And so Rajesh had to come to my house to pick me up.

As we were driving to the spot Rajesh introduced me to a person seating in the rear seat. He was his cousin and I asked him after a while as what he does. He replied to me saying that he is movies. I was not that attentive and thought that may be he is in movie show business like involved in organizing film festival events and related activities. But on further inquiry he said that he directs movies.

Now I was a little serious and asked like which all movies he has directed in past. Rajesh interrupted in between and said that he was here for his movie’s North American premiere. The movie has Om Puri in lead role and the name of the move is King of Bollywood. I had heard about this movie sometime back as in one of the TV interviews Om Puri had mentioned about it. I could not believe that a simple looking guy has so many achievements under his belt. I felt very privileged and we went over many topics related to Indian Film industry in general and what kind of movies will work and under what circumstances and so on so forth. I was enjoying talks with him a lot.

Finally when we reached to the site where Rajesh’s car was waiting, we had a long wait there for CAA guys to come and tow it to a garage in Mississauga. During that long wait for nearly 2 hours I had opportunity to talk with him in great details. I came to know that Piyush is an MBA from Bajaj and he had worked with Mudra for many years. Also he had closely worked with Mukul Anand, a very famous Hindi film director. I came to know about his future plans. He invited me to his premiere to be held on August 5th.

I reached at Harbourfront around 6:00 PM, though the premiere was to begin at 7:30 or so. However there was one Indian cultural festival called Maehndi Masala Masti 2005 was in progress and I started enjoying that. There was a stall by Ikea and lucky spinning wheel won me a T-shirt. The T-shirt was specifically designed for Indian crowd as it had “Yeh Kea, Woh Kea and Ikea” printed on it. There was a big food corner with stalls from almost all the famous Indian restaurants in GTA.

We went early in the cinema hall and it was already full. With some introduction by Deepak Sachdeva, organizer of Film festival, the movie started. Movie was “jara leek se hatkar” and was a satire on Indian Film industry where superstars never want to give up and keep on dancing as main actor opposite girls of their great granddaughter’s age. The dig was made against NTR of south and few others in Hindi movie like Amitabh who kept on acting in lead roles until he was booted by public and he was out of movies fora decade or more and came back in more dignified roles which suit his personality. It is a different story that many say that he commands highest fee in the industry much to the disappointment of current “superstars”. But many say that he is a different class. But what about Devanand or Rishi Kappor. The former is not giving up even though he is in his late eighties now! There have been many such characters in Indian films who inspired Piyush to come out with this hilarious movie theme. Movie had many other issues running in parallel. The direction was good but at times it could not keep pace with the story. Also when the climax of the movie came he just let it take its own course of actions rather than converge all to build the climax. I compared his movie with a well set batsman in cricket like Sachin who builds the innings with discipline until late 30 overs and when he is about to change the gear and accelerate the run rate, he gets run out! It is not exactly anti-climax but kind of one feels in-satiated. Same kind of feeling I had when I was watching the climax of the movie. The portion of movie after the climax was definitely boring and completely unwanted. But overall movie is OK, I would not say great just because I happen to know him now.

There was a post movie interview and many people asked him questions. I was feeling very different as I had never been to any premiere before. I heard that Piyush is going to be in Toronto for his next project and hope to talk to him soon. It was a very great feeling to have interacted with someone so close to Bollywood ever in my life.      

There is a song from one old Hindi movie “Bachpan Har Gam Se Begaana Hota Hai.” I used to hear that song a lot when I was a kid but never understood that what it really meant until I realized that I am not a kid anymore and the childhood will never come back. I have kept the child active and alive in me but sadly, I would never be able to go back in time. What I am left with is now recalling and recollecting my childhood memories.

It is an irony that when I was a child, I would always feel that “when I will grow up..” for everything. I used to feel disadvantageous on everything because of being child. Ask any child and he would say that he wants to grow up fast. Ask any adult and he would say that what fun it used to be when they were young kids- no worries but only play and have fun! It is a never-ending desire for the other! When I was young, I used to hate school and also hated that we were always accommodated in anything. We never used to have our own standing for anything. Others decided our preferences. The desire to have our own identity or a say on our decision making would always make me feel that when would I grow up. Let me recount my old days in a gradual fashion.

Hariharpur

Of all my childhood days, the most memorable are the ones, which I spent in my mother’s village Hariharpur. I can never forget the time spent in the gachhee (mango orchard) and in the khets (farm fields). Whenever I dream of my childhood, invariably memories of those days will occupy my mind. I had always longed for the vacation time at Hariharpur but we did not go to the village very often. The longest we lived there was during Bharti Mausi’s(Mother’s younger sister) marriage. That was during the summer of 1977.

Train journey back in those days

Hariharpur had a unique setup of an ideal village back in those days. A typical small railway station called Mohammedpur beside a small market and Kamala River used to be the last point for train. But reaching to that station was not as easy as appears now. It would be an overnight train journey to reach Barauni Junction and from there we would change the train to Narkatiaganj on chhotee line (small track). The train had unlimited possibilities of factors to surprise anyone. To begin with, the starting time for journey would always be anyone’s guess! The trains would be known by the timing for its start (or the time it crossed Mohammedpur junction, not sure now) and accordingly it would be called as naubajiya, ekbajiya, and theenbajiya and so on so forth. Irony was that naubajiya may be so late that it should ideally be called Ekbajiya or so but people would follow the right sequence and time attached to the name had not much significance and they would continue their sequence of trains to follow!

The speed of the train would be extremely slow. Train to the Barauni used to be express train and would be much better and train’s speed would also be in the bearable range of human beings. But the speed of the train on the small track used to be unbearable.

Window seat: A daring act yet prized one

Back in those days the trains used to be steam locomotive and the air would be full of un-burnt coal particles and ashes. So seating on the window side had its own problems as invariably these dusts would get in the eyes and make one cry. Seating on window side had the biggest disadvantage in terms of spits by people who chew tobacco. The flying missile or splinters might attack the lesser mortals who dare seating close to window and expose his body. The train’s interior condition used to be unimaginable. There would always be more people standing than seating and coming inside the train and going out would be a real challenge. So much so that I remember that we used to be pushed from the window of the train (back in those days the windows of train would not have railings like now). We would fall on something or somebody and there used to be series of abuses and shouts and we would be standing helpless and hapless in an unknown territory and surrounded by all strangers intriguing at us. Our biggest worry used to be where Babujee is as he would be the last to get up. I would be very scared to even imagine that if he could not get up. The main problem used to be very brief stoppage on the stations. Getting down from the train was relatively simpler as we would start one or two stations ahead.

Seating on the window seat, I would love watching the beautiful scenes of small villages, creeks, fields, small markets on the side of the track, kids playing cricket or small stations where train would not stop! Each next scene would have its own scripts, themes, acts and fun. One would be so busy and occupied. I used to fight among all three of us and invariably would win the seat. Once I was fighting with all and sat on the window seat. I was very pampered and stubborn and would ask for something which Babujee and Ma would generally accept not out of affection but to avoid the headache, which I might cause during the journey. So I was chewing Paan. It was raining for a while and therefore glass window was closed, so one could still see outside. I wanted to spit out of the window and I opened the window and latched it. The windows during those days would not be as nicely fitted as now and it the latch was not that firmly locked so with few jerks it slipped and the whole window just fell over hurting my small finger. It was a bloody scene. I had my finger completely chomped and squeezed with blood oozing out. It stopped bleeding finally and when I reached home, Bimla Mausi was waiting at the main crossroad to the village with lantern. She took out some kerosene oil and poured on my wound with the belief that it would act as anti-septic! But in spite of that, I never lost my interest for that seat.

But beside that one could focus on the conversation going on inside the train as well. There would be all kind of conversation right from family feud to politics or religious. Political discussion used to be of general interest and every one used to have something to contribute in those discussions. We were not that interested in their topic of discussion but some slang definitely would attract our attention. Ma would be very embarrassed as she would never have liked the kids getting exposed to a vulnerable crowd the one I used to face or exposed to during our journey.

Another problem used to be luggage. Back in those days the steel trunks and big sized leather suitcases covered with cloth and stacked on each other near the entrance would be a normal sight to welcome anyone who was getting up the train. I must say that few generations after that, we are much smarter in the way we travel. I still wonder that why we used to travel with so big trunks? But beside anything else, the biggest advantage the trunks would have in terms of seating. Anywhere, whether waiting in the railway platform for hours and hours or while aboard train, it used to serve as a very convenient seating arrangement. But one could be surprised but during the train journey we used to come across strangest items being sold which in my opinion, one would not even imagine in his rarest or rare dreams being sold on railway platforms. Items like kitchenware, vegetables, decorative pieces, chairs etc. were some of the items, I remember I had seen being sold on the platform, when I was young. May be these items were from cottage industry and due to lack of the proper outlets the local artisans must be trying to sell in this way. Whatever may be the reason for selling but they used to do quite a good business. There always used to be room for bargain and Babujee would keep on bargaining to the end and buy some of those items. It would now become extra luggage and that too loose. If we had not enough problems with the luggage, Babujee added these additional items to our worries.

The train journey used to be a real exposure to the world where we were to enter in future. I used to be scared at times to see some of the people who used to be very harsh, ill mannered and very selfish. I then used to feel very protected and secured with Babujee. I must say that I would look to Babujee whenever I would be very scared with any such encounters with the people. Each railway station on our way to Mohammedpur used to look more or less like a village with slightly urban touch in close vicinity of the railway station. Moment the train would start and the village at its fullest were exposed to the eyes. Many hands of small kids would wave to many unknown commuters everyday and many old farmers would not even to bother to see to the train. We would encounter numerous beggars, spiritual people in bhagwa dress and so many hawkers. Many of those hawkers used to be as young as of my age. I used to feel for them. I would question to myself, what life they had, where they lived, how about their parents and so on so forth. We were very religious minded kids and whenever any temple would come during the journey, we all will fold our hands and bow our head. If one of us missed any, the other would show through window.

Train journey had another advantage in terms of buying magazines and comics. We would buy magazines like Nandan, Lotpot, Madhu Muskan, Paraag, Baal Bharti etc. and sometimes with great reluctance we would also manage Indrajaal Comics, which were mainly for Vetal (Phantom), Mandrake, Garth or our favorite Bahadur. The best part of reading some of these comics was that some of the special tricks or magic spells the characters were capable of doing in those comics were not known to all of us (more you read, more you know kind of effect). We would refer to each other and discuss how was some trick possible and one of us would settle that by saying that yes, it was possible in one of the episodes that he had read and likewise! It used to be a great fun!

Bridge on Kamala River

Once we reached the Mohammedpur station, there would always be someone waiting for us. We would then walk over the Railway Bridge to cross the Kamala River, and that was a very scary part as the entire bridge has many gaps all over and one could see the portion of river down from the gaps. The bridge was a railway bridge and was not meant for the pedestrians but villagers had no choice but cross the bride. People would just watch the signal and accordingly use the bridge, the train speed would not be that great and one could manage crossing the bridge even after the train was in the visible range, but it was a risky affair. I remember once we were returning from Hariharpur and Manoj was way ahead of us. He went over the bridge and meanwhile a goods train came. He was not with anyone but alone and we all thought that something unfortunate will happen now. But he was lucky and smart too in managing a platform meant for people to wait when train was on the bridge. It was a very narrow escape for him and lucky too. The train being so long, it was not clear where he was but we all were much relieved once the train left the bridge and Manoj re-surfaced! Ma was very anxious and she was shouting at all of us and asked us to be together.

Crossing the bridge was very awful experience for me. Although one would be very careful walking on that but still the fear of putting the feet on one of those gaps would always generate lots of fear in one’s mind!

Whenever we would be expected to come at the station there would be people waiting for us. One of them used to be Ramdharia. He was dark black with very big white eyes. He was a strong man and would take both of us on his shoulders and also take luggage on his head to carry all the way to our home. He would always be smiling and that time I did not know how much I will miss him in later days. He was a very nice person and would always be cheering us up. After crossing the river there used to be a long walk between the fields. The aisles made between the fields would be the paths. Ramdharia would guide us and we all would just follow him in the dark evening or sometimes night. As soon as we crossed Bauara Pokher, we would start feeling the closeness to the house. There would at times body being cremated at the bank of Bauara Pokher and that used to scare us a lot. We used to be very much afraid of ghosts and all the similar stories. We invariably would not speak or shout near that place as I had a fear that may be that will prompt ghosts to come to me!

The old Banyan Tree : Bhairo Baba

Once we reached the main crossing for Hariharpur, it would be a very short distance to cover. There was a big Banyan tree which people used to worship and was called Bhairo Baba. The tree was very close to Dalan (a place little away from the main house). Dalan was a very interesting place, there were few small huts for cattle and in addition, it had enough space to accommodate people for talking or meeting each other. There used to be couple of chawkees (a very simple form of bed).

Back in those days village life was very much alive and it had a complete system in working. People used to be heavily dependent on agriculture and they used to live in the village. Life was simple, people would be very much approachable and would meet with each other every so often. People helped each other and overall it used to be a very family kind of feeling of the entire village. It was not uncommon for people to spend the whole day talking to each other. People would either be going to Darbhanga, or places related to in-laws of himself, daughter, son, sister etc. to attend some rituals. Most of the people were clean shaved as it is customary to shave the head if someone close dies. The village being so close knit and deaths being not uncommon, people would have their head shaved before it would reach the normal length. The common people’s dress used to be mostly dhoti and kurta. Chhah (tea) and Tamakul or Khaini (tobacco for chewing) were always welcome and cricket match used to be the passion of people. Married women would always cover their head while crossing the gatherings of people, normally the term for that was ghogh tananai. The females would also stop by to talk to other females but they would invariably be pulled inside the “aangan“. While males would be always be moving around the village, the females would usually visit each other in the afternoon. Invariably one house or other would have marriage, upnayan sanskar or mundan sanskar. These occasions have so many rituals attached and all to be completed by the females that afternoon session would always be busy for them by visiting any of those houses where some function was taking place. But people were always very concerned and curious about activities in each other’s house. If we had arrived, many of them would just come to talk to us. There used to be a different kind of warmth and affection, indeed nowhere else one could find that ever!

The Bhairo Baba had a great significance and everyone would fold their hands and bow down to the tree while crossing it. There was a big keertan once while seating under that tree and in the evenings there were few possession from that place to the entire village and it came back again. We had participated in that and I must say that it was quite an experience!

Nani and her affection

Whenever we visited Hariharpur, Nanaji and Nani would always be there before us. We would have a very grand welcome by Nani and we would start touching the feet of all the elders. First we would go to the Bhagwati Ghar, each house in villages have one such room, sometimes combined with kitchen, where ancestral God’s statue or image would always be there and we all would worship that. Then Doodh Baba and his family members would meet us and we would have so much to talk to each other. Just beside the house, there is a big pond. If it was a cloudy or rainy day all the frogs would be restless and the whole time their noise would make one feel irritated. The long leaves of banana tree just beside the pond would also make some kind of flapper noise whenever there would be a string breeze. Nani would whisk us away to the kitchen and feed us with some of the nicest and most delicious food, I have ever eaten. We used to be very tired and wherever we found places, we would just fall down and start sleeping.

Next day morning used to be very exciting. We would come in contact with many local kids and they would be just standing and watching us. Wherever we would go, they would also follow us. There was a hand pump just outside the house. It was installed and maintained by Nanaji. Since morning one could hear the sound of operating the pump with the hands. All the people were dependant on the water and solkan women would fetch water from that in surahee (pot made of baked solid and nicely decorated). They would clean and then fill the water in that. The whole process was very interesting. The way they cleaned the pot and then fill the water and lift that on head and walk to the houses, it used to be well in sync and with perfection. If anyone from our family came to the Kal (that is how Nanaji used to call the hand pump), others would not only pave the way for us but also help in filling the water in our bucket. It used to be a bit embarrassing but everyone used to take bath also there! In the morning time, may be since 5:00 AM, that place would be extremely busy until almost 10:00 AM. There was a well beside that hand pump but that was not used. There were many frogs in that and we would enjoy watching our image in the dirty water of the well and echoing our voice in that dark well. The water from the hand pump used to collect in a small tank and that would have underground pipe to take it all the way out to the end near dabra(a pond which was of no use but it existed for whatever reason) just beside the Dalan.

Nani’s kitchen : Chulha Ghar

Once we took bath, we had many activities lined up. Either we would go to Gachhee or to the fields to see the Dhaan Kataai or likes. Nani would always feed us with lots of Dahee or Khoya. The kitchen used to be a small hut attached to the main house. If one was not careful, chances were there to get hurt with the narrow and very short entrance to the kitchen. Even inside there would be Dahee (curd) or Malai (cream) in a pot-hanging overhead, to avoid it from the cats who could not reach to it. There was no stove when I was young, later on Nanaji had purchased gas stove and replacing the empty gas tanks with the refilled gas tanks from Darbhanga used to be a full day activity. But the chulha with jaran (wood burning in it) had its own fun. The taste of food cooked over that kind of chulha had a different taste altogether! I will never forget the way milk was boiled in a black kadahi (big deep pan). The term for boiling the milk was auntna. There used to be a big wooden spoon, which would be used for stirring the milk again and again until it became very thick. Then it would be ready to be poured in matkuri (the earth pot in which curd used to be set). What I still remember vividly was Nani’s special kind of sound spelt each time she would put the culture in the milk and stir, it used to be chha chha chha….! I do not know why she would do that but that could have been one essential step for preparing the dahi, so to say! Everyday she would take out the chhalee (cream) from dahi and would get collected in a separate vessel and eventually she would heat them up to extract desi ghee (ghyu..as Nani would tell!). Dahi and Chura used to be our breakfast and till date I am yet to eat as good breakfast as I ate while seating in that small kitchen! May be it had lots and lots of love and affection mixed from Nani and that used to make it even more delicious! I enjoyed cooking so much that I would spend hours and hours there with Nani. There used to be a lady called Mahagi, she was an integral part of kitchen. She was even elder to Nani and at times she would even scold Nani. But they were kind of inseparable! Mahagi used to wait for Nani’s arrival to the village, which would be at least once a year or more and when she would reach there, she could not do anything without her. She was like another Nani for us. We used to like her face a lot, she did not have a single tooth left and her cheeks would just look like hollow! That would even be more prominent when she would take deep puff of her bidi (small cigarette made of leaves). She was very energetic and I redeemer that once Mahagi and I were asked to visit Darbhanga to deliver some special sweets and items for Mama and Mami. We first went to Mohammedpur to catch the train but we came to know that the train was very late and so we decided to walk. She insisted that I should go back but I continued with her. It was a very long walk. We walked almost for 3-4 hours. We took one tractor ride also in between if I remember well but it was walking all the way! I guess Mahagi returned the next day and I stayed for few more days. I had no plan to stay overnight so did not carry any clothes. I remember when I was trying to ride Mama’s motorcycle, I tore my black trouser and it was very embarrassing moment for me. He then took me to a shop and bought some of the best clothes I ever had till then in my life. I was very surprised to see the lavishness and better quality of lifestyle Mama and his in-laws had. We were brought up in a very modest way. May be that is why we had thirst for almost everything as when we were growing up which may be acted as a strong driving force.

Ajanta used to be our closest friend at Hariharpur, though she was couple of years older to me but she was mother’s cousin in relation. She would take us to various places. We used to go together in the morning to pick flowers for the Puja. We would go to Pokhar for bath and swimming, which I did not know at all. The best was to go to Kansaar for Bhuja. She would take some grains and it used to be bartering system for Laai or Bhuja. The Kansaar used to be at the end of the village and she used to have a clay pot with lots of sand in it over a stove fired by logs. She would put rice or corn and it would start popping up in the heated sand. Then she would take the whole popped up corn, rice or badaams together with sand and then separate it with a fine chalni (sieve). We would then come back to aangan and Ajanta would then cut fine onions and put some masaala from pickles. It used to taste ultimate.

Durga Sthan

Hariharpur used to be a very lively village back in those days. It has a great place called Durga Sthan. It is a little farther from home and is more on way to another village called Malpatti. Durga Sthan, I was told was all established by youths of village. There was a time when there were some very dynamic youths, mainly Arun Mama, Bilat Nana, Manikant Nana and others whom I do not know about. They all were brilliant students and thought different about the village life and established a kind of community centre. They collected resources from everyone and built a very good Durga Mandir where every year a grand Durga Puja is celebrated with lots of fan and fare. There used to be a library as well at Durga Sthan. They also had cricket and soccer teams and there was a field just adjacent to that where we used to have cricket matches in the evenings. I was not that great player in my childhood and would mostly watch the games but sometimes when they were short of players, they would include me as well. Manoj used to be a flamboyant player in all sports and he would play a lot. In fact there used to be tournaments as well and he sometimes played great in those matches. Once he had been to a village somewhere close to Darbhanga to play in a tournament as well. There was a dedicated person called Guruji. He was a very strange character. He was much older to be called a youth but still was a very energetic person and used to be very keen to keep the youths of village together. He was unquestionably the captain of the team. Though he was not a great player but he had tremendous organizing skills. He would be very much in contact with youths of the village, no matter which caste or creed they belonged to. It is very disappointing to note that in later years there was a Mandal commission which was implemented by Indian government for amendment in the Indian constitution to give more benefits to the backward caste. Apparently the report had suggested that backward caste and Dalits were always kept away by the so-called forward caste. Whether country was indeed divided on caste lines before the implementation of the report or not, it definitely divided the whole country on caste lines afterwards. But in Hariharpur, I remember that the team used to have players from all castes and they would play as a team with players from forward caste, Hariharpur is mainly a Brahmin dominated village. I could not comprehend that theory given by Mandal commission whenever I visualized my experience and facts seen during the childhood days. But the politicians have ulterior motives.

Guruji as he was called by everyone, I never came to know about his real name, was already married and had kids too. But he was devoted for a cause , unfortunately that did not pay him anything. Eventually, I was told that he had very poor health and he took the wrong course of life and was mostly on high with Bhang and drinks and I do not know much about him now. But when I was young, he used to be a person who would generate lots of enthusiasm in all of us. He used to be the central figure in the village activities.

Nanaji used to enjoy talking to people very much. He had constructed a big verandah outside his house and there used to be a good seating arrangement. Invariably people would be crossing that place as either people would be going to Darbhanga or coming from somewhere. Nanaji was very fond of listening to the transistor and if no one around he would listen to the music or news. That place was my favourite one. As Ma would ask me to go elsewhere as we were not allowed to seat with elders but Hariharpur being such a place that Ma would also be busy somewhere and I would continue to seat there! Later on Ma would be very upset with me and say -” Gapp pibo me budd maja aboi chhau!” (You enjoy a lot to “drink” the talks!) There was a house just across the road opposite the verandah and his name was Ramekbal. He was handicapped as his one leg had some problem and he could not fold it as a result difficulty in walking and seating as well. There was a very interesting story on how he became handicapped. We were told that during English Raj time there used to be some orchards owned by government. Ramekbal was a child and he like others went up some mango trees and was busy plucking mangos and soon police came there. Other kids jumped and ran and he was on a branch, which was at a very good height, and from where he could not dare jumping. Eventually out of fear he did jump and that broke his leg and so was the story. He had a small family and he used to make his living by selling dairy to people in the village. He was a very nice and gentleperson and would talk to all of us. Since that verandah was just opposite to his small hut for cattle, he would sleep mostly on that verandah when no one was in Hariharpur (major part of the year no one would be living there anyway!). So he would come and seat down on the floor invariably and talk to us.

There were many other people who would make it to that verandah once a day. Some of them were Taracharan Babu, Pooran Mama, Fekan Mama, Balbodh Jha and others. Surprisingly Nanaji was equally popular among younger generation as well. He had decided long time back to settle down in Hariharpur once he was retired from his service at Jamshedpur. Eventually he did go and settle down there. He had a desire to start a college in Hariharpur and he started working hard for that but he had to deal mostly with youths and some of them did not like him. He had a very amicable personality and he did make great moves towards starting a college but once there was a conflict between groups because of the politics for getting the contacts regarding construction of college buildings and that resulted in firing in the village. A splinter stuck Nani’s head as she was peeping out of the door to see what was going on. Nani was rushed to Darbhanga and miraculously she survived. Ever since that, Nanaji withdrew himself from all such activities and he started living a completely isolated life. It was a sad end to his great dream but that is what unfortunately the reality. The people in village had changed a lot and it was no more the same place as it used to be 25-30 years back. Last when I visited Hariharpur (and perhaps that would be my last visit as well!) in year 1998, it bore a different look. People were more isolated and the overall environment did not have the same enthusiasm and friendliness. People did not even care and talked to us. It was a completely different Hariharpur what I used to see. I believe the harsh realities of life and TV in village has brought a lot of change and no one now wants to live in village.

Fekan Mama used to be a very interesting character. He was a cook in the Indian army and had traveled all over India with the troop. He was physically a very strong personality and had a very thick and long mustache. He would brag a lot about army and the places he had visited. People used to love to hear his long lectures. But we were kids that time and he would call us and talk in a very military ishtyle. Once he grouped all the kids together and we did a cleaning up job of the streets from our home to the Bhairo Baba. There were all kind of junks and he made us work just in the military style. There were many other interesting people who would flock to that verandah once a day and kind of entertain us! There were two brothers called Purnianand and Sarojanand from a so-called rich family of the village. They would have a nice home just beside the pond and that was very much visible. But in spite of all these we would hear many stories about them, which were not very sober. Once they were accused of stealing mangos from someone’s orchard, would never know if those accusations were true or not. In the same extended family there was one Bhagnarayan. His son Anil. Anil used to be very active and was very friendly with us. However, they were little reserved and hardly would come and talk to anyone. They believed in a different kind of lifestyle, perhaps.

Of all the people our next door neighbours were the most interesting ones. There used to be a person called Kulesh and his brother Mahesh. Kulesh, I was told that was brilliant in studies but somehow he got derailed and could never recover in his career path. He was little lost kind of character and sometime would talk to us and most of the times he would just ignore everyone and go straight to his home. Mahesh was a genius and he remembered almost entire career record of great cricketer Sunil Gavaskar(Mahesh and Nanaji would say Gabhaskar). He had amazing memory power. Unfortunately later on I came to know that he died leaving behind a young family. Mahesh’s mother was an old widow and was completely insane. Invariably one would hear a loud altercation between the old lady and some other people in home and she would almost run out of the home and start abusing and use the filthiest of language and come all the way near verandah. She would threaten to leave the home forever. Nanaji had see enough of her and he would get disturbed in the middle of his conversation, so every time she would come close to verandah Nanaji would almost yell at her and say - ” Ekdam nikal jau gaam sa, tabah kae ka rakhne ahee e sankal maugee!” (At once leave the village, you insane woman has made our lives miserable!) Perhaps he had yelled at her so many times that moment she would come close to verandah, she would be quiet and go farther and then start shouting again. Nanaji was very critical on many such ills of the society back then. Often one would see a scene where married daughters having kids, when leaving the village would be crying as if has been leaving for the first time! Nanaji would shout at them from verandah - “Eeh lajo nahi hoyee chhain enka, du du haath ke nankirwa lene kain rahal chhaith, bailo ekra sab ke gaam sa…!” (Shame on you that even after having grown up kids you are crying, someone throw them out from this village!). Sometimes it used to be extremely hilarious the way Nanaji would yell at people!

Shyama Chor

How could I miss a very special character of Hariharpur called Shyama Chor? There was a tragic story attached to this poor fellow. Shyama was a normal guy when he was young. He had inherited good property from his forefathers like most of the other grihasths of the village. However, it is told that some of the traitors in the village made him to drink a lot and in that condition got his thumb impression to get the lands transferred to their names. Many said that he had become addicted and that is why sold everything for whatever prices. No one would ever come to know about the true story. But the fact of the matter was that some people had usurped everything. He had virtually become homeless and could not take the shock and went insane too. In that mental situation he perhaps started the worst -stealing in the night. Very soon people in the village came to know about him as he was not that swift and smart in stealing. Many had felt bad about his poor condition and also him being one of them (he was from a good Brahmin family), they forgave all his crimes. But they told him to go to everyone’s home in the morning and ask for the food and survive with that. He also found this arrangement to be OK. So now he had a big steel plate in his hand and he would come to everyone’s doorstep and ask for the food very authoritatively.

I had never seen a thief in person before. Everyday morning I would wait for his arrival. To me he looked a very sober and quite guy. He used to wear a very dirty dhoti and shirts of any size, perhaps mostly donated by someone. He would have half black and white beard and was almost bald. His eyes were very deep and open and would scare someone if he watched him. In his deep-throated voice he would shout almost - “Lau e kakee, bhukh lagal oichh!” Nani would not be ready so she would say -”Ghuer ka aabey akhan nahi bhel aichh!” And he would not mind whatever is given to him, he would finish everything right there! We would ask him many questions as how he used to scale the walls and steal and so on so forth. He would never reply and just stare. We would be terrified. But deep inside me I used to feel sorry for him.

Doodh Baba

Nanaji and Nani as Ramsundar called Nanaji’s younger brother. But I gave him a new name- Doodh Baba. The story goes this way that when I was young, I used to love milk a lot. I would call everything as Duddhu if I liked it, kind of synonym for good in my vocabulary. Everyone knew my weakness. Ma told me that even if I was bleeding when I would get hurt, if I was offered milk, I used to smile! When I used to be in Hariharpur, Doodh Baba would bring a glass of fresh milk, milked right in home from his cattle. I used to drink in one breath and would be so happy that I started calling him Dudhhu Baba and later on Doodh Baba!

I remember those days when he would take us to Dalaan and expose us to his own world. He used to live mostly there and he had many interesting things to show to us. Right from buffaloes, cows, oxen, keut, dhekee and many more such interesting things. I will attempt to explain these terms a little later. He would often take us in the evenings when it used to be little darker. Sometimes we would sleep there or in the evenings we would be asked to study something from our course materials as Ma was very particular about our academic part as well.

With darkness looming all over and a small lantern showing very little light at Dalan we would seat down on chowkee and study. Jyotakhee Baba’s house was very close and there used to be a boy there called Vachaspati who would study a lot in the evenings seating on a chowkee there which was close to us. Jyotakhee Baba had left side of his body paralyzed and Pooran Mama used to take his care so much that it could be termed as and example of ultimate affection and a care a son could have for his father. We were told that Jyotakhee Baba had studied at Kashi and he was very knowledgeable and calm and cool. He was eldest in Nanaji’s Bhaiyaree (among brothers of his generation). Whenever we would come to Hariharpur, after Dalan we would have a brief stoppage at Jyotakhee Baba’s chowkee as he would be seating most of the times on a chowkee and watching people coming and going. We would touch his feet and get his blessings and only then move to our home.

We would hardly study there as there were so many attractions and our child curiosity would dominate over all other things and we would just start moving around and see the things. But Then we would have a small bonfire called ghoor, if it was a wintertime. We all would seat closely near the ghoor and warm us up. What used to be the most interesting part were Doodh Baba’s stories. His big round eyes and variation in voice would bring life in the stories. We would be scared a lot. And then in the wilderness of night with fresh breeze blowing the leaves of big Banyan tree, which was called Bhairo Baba, a very beautiful sound would fill the atmosphere. But after hearing the stories related to lions or ghosts we would hear only what used to scare us even from Bhairo Baba! We would somehow make it to our home and eat our meal in the kitchen and go for sleep.

Missing links : Recollect the old times through farming et al

Let me explain some of the instruments, which I mentioned earlier now. First of all I am not too sure whether I am able to recollect their names correctly or not. But let me capture them here anyway and I will verify them with someone more knowledgeable later on and should there be a need to update them, I will do that here. Keut that used to be a specially hollowed log with one end closed and the other end as an open channel. The purpose of that was for watering the fields. The way that instrument was used must have been a indigenous scientific innovation.

The keut used to be hanged by strong ropes in the middle so that closed end would lower to a deep-water logged area. The other end had a rope to support by hand and then it would be lowered down to get the water filled in the big hollow closed end. With the hand rope it would be then pulled down. When it will be further down, then other end would be pressed by leg to get the water released in the channel made all the way from that end to the fields. This was the way the fields would be watered once in a while. The waterlogged area would be purposely made a deep hollow low land so that water could be stored there as a reservoir.

Dhekee used to be an arrangement for separating the brown hull from the un-hulled rice. There used to be a long heavy round log hinged on a fulcrum in the middle. It used to have its one end flattened for legs to press and the other end used to have a shaft mounted. This shaft would go into a hole in the floor. At the tip of the shaft a round-headed component was fitted which would come down in the hole and that would result in pounding the unhulled dried rice. The rice produced would be ready for cooking. One person would use the other end to press it up and down resulting in pounding and the other person would be seating close to the hole and from time to time take out the rice and brown hulls(bhusa or choker a good meal for cows and buffaloes). That person had to be very cautious as if there was any mistiming it could have resulted in chomping the fingers!

With so much of modernization, those instruments lived its life I guess. But I will always remember the earlier version of the modern mechanical processes, which alienates people from the reality so much. Hursh and Yash were insisting to go to a farm once and when I saw the modern process of agricultural farming here, I knew very well that they would never believe about what all I have mentioned here. How could they understand what dauna used to be? Let me recollect the whole process of rice processing right from beginning. I had seen all these processes so closely that I can not let is just get buried inside me like that. I would like to recollect each and every moment of it.

Rice Crop : A summary of complete process

Most of the times I visited Hariharpur during harvesting season but if I remember well couple of times I did visit during the preparation of paddy and plantation as well. During those days we used to have jaun banihars (kind of bonded labours) working for us. That was a tradition, which when now I look back was traditional but kind of exploitation of some lower caste families. The way the jaun banihars used to work was long running family of a dalit attached to the family of each Brahmin family. The day a son was born in Brahmin family, one of the sons of the designated Dalit family would also used to be “assigned” to the boy in Brahmin family for the rest of life. What it meant was that the designated person became an asset for him and he would assign work to him for the rest of life. Whether working in the field or repairing the house, he needed to be present everyday at Grihasth’s (landlord’s) home. Even on occasions like marriage, Upnayan sanskar or any such special gatherings at home they had to show up and work at his master’s house. It used to be a pathetic situation for them as they and their family were whole and sole dependent on Grihasth. There was no cash payment for them but they used to get a portion of rice or wheat produced as their earnings for the year. Also, everyday they used to get lunch from Grihasth’s family. When they used to work at filed, one of the kids from Grihasth’s family would go and deliver bain (the lunch) to them. The bain used to be mainly three or four makai ke rota with salt, green chili and few drops of mustard oil with a lota of water. Sometimes they would also get roasted red pepper. Consistently the same food must have been a monotonous for them but that is what they were given. I remember Ma was very kind hearted and when we would visit village she would give some additional stuff too. My uncles used to get very upset saying that - “Aha aadat bigaid debai, aagu hamra sa ete paar nahi hoit” (You will spoil them, in future I would not be able to cope up with so much).

Now in all fairness the grihasth’s situation was also not better. The Brahmins also had no cash crops and as a whole the life in village used to be very much or bartering system. I remember that kunjarinis (female vegetable sellers) used to come to the aangans (courtyard of house) and they would sell the vegetables in exchange to rice or wheat in a certain ratio. I have even seen kerosene oil and other such items being purchased on bartering system.

So, with no access to cash it was very unlikely for them to pay the jaun banihars in cash. Though it may sound as if the jaun banihars were kind of “slaves”, in reality hardly anyone had any choice than continue to live in the village and do what for years their forefathers had been doing. In simple words that arrangement “worked” for both side back in those days. It is now debatable that whether they continued under any pressure or it was just because there was no exposure to either side. But I remember that back in those days the so-called jaun banihars were not revolting at all and were very submissive. In fact they could have gone to the cities for work on cash but it seems that they must have figured out that whatever arrangement they had, that could have been a better one and so they very quite satisfied. What I definitely did not like was the communication with them and keeping them always in low esteem. But even till date in any manufacturing plant in India the similar treatment to workers or labours could be seen. However in last 20 odd years the flood gate opened for these labours and they started visiting Haryana and Punjab and they started getting cash as wages. The wages are also good and exposure to cities has definitely opened up their minds and all these jaun banihar concept has almost come to an extinct. It is so pathetic to see now that lands are barren now and no one is to cultivate anything. Even grihasths have started moving to cities now as it is indeed very tough and unpredictable to rely on agriculture alone.

I remember whenever any of these jaun banihars revolted, the grihasths also made their life miserable by not calling them again. There was a case of Ramrup in Hariharpur who would be very arrogant with Nanaji and he abandoned him. After few times when he was not called by anyone he almost had broken down and had come to ask for forgiveness. The bottom line was that they were dependent on each other and were an integral part of the whole agricultural process. The grihasths also did not have an easy life. They had to move around all the fields on foot and some of them were far from village, arrange for cash to purchase fertilizer and supervise overall all the activities. They would also be working whole day in and around villages.

Well let me now explain the process in brief. In the beginning jaun banihars used to take the oxen and pulled a harrow through the rice field or paddy. The harrow used to level the soil surface and make a smooth bed for rice seedlings to be planted.

After the preparation of the field the seedlings were planted one at a time, spacing them a hand span apart. (A hand span is the distance from the thumb to little finger when the fingers are spread apart). A few days later, a man will walk through the fields casting handfuls of fertilizer(mainly from cow dunk called gobars) to cover the fields.

Finally when rice plants grew and with watering them periodically using arrangements like keut or other means eventually the crop would be ready for harvesting. During the Dhankataai (harvesting) the entire family of jaun banihars would participate. Some people from Mushar community also used to join. As the harvesting continued, the members from Mushar community would be smart enough to find the mouse holes where lots and lots of rice would be buried. They were specialized in finding them. It was told to me that they would catch the mice as well and eat them. The women and children from jaun banihars’ family used to hold a small knife (called hansua) in their hands. Each stalk were cut individually and transferred to their left hand. When enough had been cut to make a small bundle, it used to be stacked for later threshing to separate the straw, consisting of the plant and stems, from the grain. The bundles were transferred by bullock cart and then in dalaan it would be stacked. After this for few days they were spread out and then dried.

This used to be time for dauna. When the bundles were dried completely they were spread out within a circle within which “teams” of 2 to 3 bulls were driven in tight circles over it, the hooves stamping out the grains. Most of the cows or bulls used to wear muzzles to prevent them from gobbling up the work intensive crop.

After this the grains were separated from straws by shaking on the ground. After this grains were collected using a special kind of broom for this purpose. Shaking the rice back and forth on a flat bamboo tray called supa winnowed the rice grains. That used to separate the grain from the chaff and dust, which were collected at the end of the supa. The supa was then tossed to remove those materials. It was held high and gently tipped down, making the heavier grain fall on a mat, while the chaff were blown away by the wind. The straw-like hull also used to blow away. That scene used to be very good as they would wait for a good breeze to blow and we would watch it so enthusiastically.

The rice would now be packed in bora (jute bags) and transferred to home. There used to be bataiya (division) now between grihasth and jaun banihars. Sometimes they were sold also to some external businessmen. There used to be a big size tarazoo (weight measuring instrument) in home. The weight blocks were mainly some stones and normally it would be called ser (term for Kilograms). They would make one side of the tarazoo equivalent to five ser or so and keep it intact. Now on they would start emptying one side and start weighing the grains each time in terms of five sers. This would make the process faster. What I used to enjoy was the counting method. Each time they dropped one side on a pile they would count as ekahi ram, duahee ram, teenahi ram and so on. While they were weighing next one they would constantly repeat the last count as teenahi ram, teenahi ram, and teenahi ram until next one was also dropped on the pile and so on so forth.

Jaun banihars used to trust their grihasths so much that they would leave their portion in grihasth’s aangan and would transfer some other day. The reason was that they had many more work left to be completed before they could go home. The portion of grihasth’s rice would then be transferred in kothees (home made big containers). It was customary to eat the old rice and so it followed FIFO (First In First Out) warehouse method as the newer rice would be poured from top and the old rice would be taken out from the bottom hole.

There was another interesting activity of chuda kutnai. Women would pound the boiled unhulled, dried rice with a moosal made of log from a seesam tree (as a pestle) in a wooden bowl (mortar) called okhail mostly made of mango log. That used to wear off the brown hull and produce flat form of rice called chuda, which was ready to be eaten with dahi (curd). Maithils are known for Dahi Chuda (and not chuda dahi) The order of use of the item defines as which item has prominence, obviously Maithil brahmin liked dahi more than chuda. So much so that I have been told that some of them have eaten up to 20 kilos of dahi in one seating!

Gachhee

Sometimes I wish that I had a camcorder with me when I was a child. There were so many great moments which I miss now, at least recordings of those could have given me some solace and let me go back in times. But God has blessed us with even more powerful media and that is our mind. All those moments are captured in my memories and whenever I seat back to recollect my old days down the memory lane, deluge of memories just starts flooding my mind. My dilemma is that which ones of these memories to pick and which ones I should just ignore, because they are so closely entangled with each other. I try to segregate as much as possible but at times it becomes a dilemma for me as how to address this and that is why I start with something and it starts drifting away and it turns out to be a saga! I started this blog to write more about my childhood memories and Hariharpur came first to my mind and when I started writing about Hariharpur, it seems I could go on writing for months as there are so much to write about! When I think of my days spent in Hariharpur, Gachhee is one place that occupies a special place in my memories.

The mango orchards are generally called Aam Gachhee or just Gachhee in short. Gachhees are very common in Mithila region where my ancestral roots are in. Nanaji had one of the best Gachhees in Hariharpur. The mango trees are not very tall and normally they start bearing the fruits in 2-3 years. The branches of mango trees are not very strong and the leaves are very dense. Some of the old trees were very big. But I was told that Nanaji had also deep interest in mango and so he had taken interest in planting some of the nicest varieties of mango trees in that gachhee. Over the years they had started bearing the fruits and we would visit during peak summer time to enjoy the mangos.

There were mango orchards belonging to many people all in-group together. It used to be an experience to reach there. It felt like walking on a trail in a forest. The gachhee, which belonged to Nanaji, was at one extreme end almost close to Bauara Pokher. We would start walking and continue through so many other gachhees. There were some other trees as well together with mango trees. During the walk to the gachhee one could see many birds, butterflies, bugs, squirrels and at times some other animals as well. I had seen some snakes as well at times, which I am most frightened with till date. The strong breeze inside the orchard would sound very different. And on a cloudy day there would be some storm and mangos would start falling. One could hear the sound very distinctly as if something heavy falling on a soft soil. On a sunny day it would be shadow all over inside the gachhee but there would be some sun filtering in and whenever there was a breeze some leaves will let sun come in and that had its own dramatic effect inside the gachhee. The temperature inside the gachhee used to be excellent. Even on a hot and humid day the condition inside a gachhee would be very comfortable. There used to be a very strong aura inside the gachhee and that used to have a drowsy effect and I believe that it could make a person fall sleep.

We used to have machan build inside the gachhee. Machaan use to be made of bamboo and it had a very simple design. Sleeping on Machaan was one of the best experiences of my life. When I used to lie down on the Machaan I would have mixture of many elements of nature! I could hear the sound of long mango leaves fighting with the breeze, cuckoo’s shriek yet sweet coo coo! Many other birds chirping sound would make the whole environment so soothing. The light would be filtering out through the mango trees as the sun and shade would always be playing with each other on us. At times some of the mangos would fall on the soft damp soil under the trees and an absorbing sound like dubb would attract the kids to go and collect the mango in a bag. These mangos were used for making chutney in home. The squirrels would often come down from the trees and pick their stuff and again go up. Some woodpeckers would be busy in their constant efforts. If one was observant enough he could see the red ants moving in sequence all the way up in the trees. Under the mango trees there used to be a special kind of soft and long grasses. The butterflies would be in abundance moving around on those grasses. At times ghaskatnee would come in pair or alone and would be busy in cutting the grass and keeping in a bag for their cattle. I was told that they were mostly Muslim girls and they mostly stayed far from our village. At times I used to get a bit afraid to see them suddenly in the gachhee. As they would surface all of sudden before my eyes since they were so quiet in their movements and their dress used to be covered with a head scarf so they used to look much different from normal females in the village. That also used to make me feel a little shocked if seen all of sudden! At times some kids riding the buffaloes would also come close to gachhee. The buffaloes grazing the grass had a distinct sound as at the end one could hear the sound of uprooting the grasses. Also sometimes these buffaloes had a bell hanging in their necks and that would sound very distinctly when they moved around. There used to be some tall plants of Tar (palm). One could see some of the pasis going up in a special way by joining their legs together and using a special kind of rope to reach at the top and bring down the tari in a pot hanging at their back. I was told that fresh tari was very good for health but normally that used to be fermented and then it would become a kind of bear, which normally people of lower caste would drink. I could never try the fresh tari ever. There were so many things happening in the wilderness inside the gachhee that one would just forget everything and it used to be a different world altogether. Some of the machaans were made in such a way that it was covered and even if it rained one could still be safe. One could see someone walking through the gachhee with a lota in his or her hand too, either going to or coming back after relieving himself.

I was told that just behind the gachhee dead bodies were cremated on the banks of Bauara Pokher. That used to frighten me a lot. To add to my fear further, I had seen some ashes in the adjacent gachhee and we were told that some one very old in the village had died recently and his dead body was cremated there. I never wanted to stay in the late evenings and always wanted to go back before the sunset. Anyway in the evenings the gachhee was not a good place to stay on as people started coming for relieving themselves since back in those days no one used to have a toilet in their home.

Varieties of Mango

Gachhee had many varieties of tree. Let me see if I could recall the names of the trees. From one end if started one would see Kishunbhog. This variety had a specialty of being very sweet even when it was not ripe. The skin of this variety used to be very thin. This variety used to be the first to taiyar (ready). We would eat this mango right there whenever it fell during the stormy weather. The next few trees were of Kalkatiya. This was one of the most tasteless and bulky mango varieties. The irony was that in spite of this being so tasteless not only the sizes were big but also it used to be in abundance. I can not remember having enjoyed this variety ever. Then there was another variety called Bombaiya. This variety was a very tasty one. It had a pungent taste with sweetness. There was a very good variety called Gulab Khas. We were told that this was considered as king of mangoes. I am not sure about that but it had an amazing taste. However, it used to taste good only when ripe unlike Kishanbhog, which tasted great in any form. The best of all was Malda. We loved this the most and there were quite a few trees of that variety. There was a variety called Jardalu, which was little hot in taste. Sinduriya variety had indeed a very dark red colour on it. Even by look Gulab Khas used to be the best in appearance. If I recall correctly there used to be some more varieties called Seepiya, Khajaulee, Dasahari and Bijju. The Bijju mango trees used to be very huge and it had many small sized mangoes. This tree was mostly unattended and the peculiarity of this used to be that even identical looking mangos of the tree could taste extremely different. It used to be kind of lottery, one could be extremely sweet and tasty and the other could be as sour as one could imagine. The mangos used to be in abundance so much so that during the rainy day people would collect all other mangos and leave this for anyone to pick!

From this gachhee if one could go towards railway line, one could cross the track and there was another gachhee called Kaulam. That was closer to villages Tectair and Pindaruch. In addition to have fun of seeing some steam locomotive crossing a small bridge we used to have fun in that gachhee as well. There were not too many trees there but there used to be a huge Bijju mango tree there. Also there was a Gular’s tree. That tree had very unique kind of flower and fruits but we never ate that. We usually not have too much of fun in that gachhee but we would have more fun in watching the trains going on the track.

Just beside the railway track, there was a very dense orchard not sure whether that belonged to someone or was railway’s property but we would go there to play. There was a huge jamun tree in that orchard and once I and few other boys started playing on the Jamun tree and I ate a lot of Jamun. I went up and up on the tree and once a branch broke but fortunately I somehow held on to another branch. I was so scared that now I did not know how to get down. I had come with Sameer (Sevakji’s son) who was very naughty and Ma would always ask me to not play with him. Sameer had quietly left the scene long before and I was all alone with boys whom I did not know much. Since the boys left there did not know me very well, I was little afraid as what will happen if I could not get down. It was getting darker and I was still on the tree. I started slowly and somehow managed to scale down. I looked up the tree where I was a moment before and I told to myself that never again would I try this kind of misadventure. Although no one was there to complain to Ma about this incident but I had a bigger problem ahead now. My shirt had all over indigo colour from Jamun and also my face and hands had that colour. I did not have anyway to hide that. I do not recall now as what happened when I reached home!

We were so fascinated with the train that invariably we would come close to track and watch it. We sometimes used to keep the coins on the track and see how that used to get elongated once the train wheel would go on that. It used to be hot and we used to have lots of fun with that. At times I would put some gravel also on the track and see how it falls from a distance. The steam engine used to be very dark black and it had very shriek sound. I used to get terrified by watching the steam engine. For some reason I never liked to cross the engine. Sometimes when we got down from the train, we had to come all the way to the end of train and cross the track ahead of engine. I used to get terrified with different kind of sounds coming from that engine, sometimes steam valve would release the steam with shriek sound and also the scene of fire and the driver putting coal in it used to frighten me a lot.

When I reached in high school, I never liked to be treated as a young boy. When we were in grade 9 and 10, we would try to prove that we were self dependent and could do most of the things ourselves. That was the time when we had many physical changes taking place, right from growing beard and mustache to change in voice. Also, I remember that was the time when we would like to spend more time outside home and talk more freely about our feelings with friends. Interference from parents at that age was the last thing we would like. That was the time when I would not like to be dominated by others. We used to be very sensitive on how people talk to whom or us talk about us. When I look back, I wonder as why we reacted to some of the situations the way we did! It may sound funny now but back in those days, that was normal!

I am not sure what Civic Holiday is for. But probably 90% of Canadians are like me, they would not care what it is for but everyone welcomes this for long weekend. I had initially plans to go south to Washington DC but then at the end I finally could not make it. On Friday, I could not start because kids and Seema had not fully recovered from flu and now I had flu as well. I could not have driven for 6-7 hours but otherwise I could manage the activities. I rather resumed my work and requested for my one day off to be shifted to Tuesday instead.

I was all determined to start for my journey early morning on Saturday, but could not for the same problem, I was not feeling well! I could have made it but Seema was not that interested. For some reasons this time Seema was lacking the enthusiasm a lot and if there was an extra torque from her, I would have been behind the wheels early morning and off to the States! But that was not to be and so I continued watching the poor performance of Indians in cricket match and by that time it was noon. Rohit and Kajari had asked us to join for breakfast. We had a very good south Indian buffet breakfast at Sarvana Bhavan. I never had a buffet breakfast! It was very good and kids loved the mini Idlees. Now Yash can say Idlee instead of Iglee.

After this we reached home and had a talk with Pintoo. I told him vaguely about my plan. I had planned to start for Pittsburgh first and stayed overnight there. Then would have started for Maine next day after breakfast. They were also to fly on Sunday from DC and reach home by late evening. I was planning to go via New Hampshire, which I am told is very beautiful. But finally the plan did not fly and we were home until late afternoon. Kids were really kind of sad as they wanted to enjoy the trip more than us, now that we had DVD player in the car. But in any case over eleven hours of driving would have taken toll of everyone of us! So finally we dropped the idea for good.

I had taken annual membership for both Toronto Zoo and Ontario Science Centre long time back but never been to any of these places for long time. This was a good time to enjoy the both. I took them to Toronto zoo. Both boys were very excited now. We reached zoo around 2:30 PM and we had nearly three and half hours of time to enjoy.

As we entered the zoo, we figured out that it was very hot and humid day and with kids walking long distances will not be a good idea. We took the zoo-mobile service, which is free for the members. It was a hop and ride kind of service. We first got down at African pavilion. Yash was so delighted to see the giraffe. We went very close to the giraffes.     

It was very hot and so Hursh demanded for ice-cream. We took a long rest there for almost half an hour. Meanwhile I was studying the entire map of the zoo and what all we could cover. Toronto Zoo is the third largest in the world, I was told. I was thinking that the maximum animals of our interest could be in African Pavilion, so we started moving around. All the animals were hiding in shadows and were resting. That was not so much of fun for us as we wanted to see them in action.

We completed the Kelso Park, which is within the African pavilion. We saw some elephants, hippos and many other animals. Yash was very keen to see zebra but zebras were standing very far from us and he looked like a donkey from that far.  

We went back to the starting point and re-started as we had to get down at American pavilion to see the polar bear and flamingos. Hursh was very keen to see the polar bear. First we were watching from up and it was playing in the water.

Yash was very excited to see them. Suddenly it went into water and we ran to watch them from underwater. It was very interesting as it came as close as few inches but because of the wall we were safe. Even then Yash was scared and he was maintaining a safe distance.

We were almost done and wanted to go back home as zoo was to close anyway at 7:00 PM. As we were walking back, I saw a very interesting signboard. O am very scared of snakes and if I had found one it would have been a very eerie feeling for me!

At the end we did some shopping at the zoo and off we were for home. It was a good experience for the kids and since we did not have any pressure to complete the entire park in one day, since we have annual membership now, it was much relaxed and we are looking forward to go there again soon. What we will make sure next time is that we will keep in mind the zookeeper timing so that it will become more interesting for us and will have some more knowledge inputs for Hursh.

Next day was Sunday and since all my friends thought that we must have been in the States, no one called us and everyone had their own plans. So we were undecided until afternoon as where to go. One thought was to seat home and relax and in the evening we would have gone out for some food. But soon boys were getting restless and me too! We had membership of Ontario Science Centre as well and we started for that. I had already booked for IMAX movie Adrenaline Rush showing at 4:00 PM.

Once we reached there, we found that there are so much for kids to have fun with. We should bring them early morning next time and let them have fun for the whole day. It offers very clean, informative, exciting, healthy and new kind of entertainment to the kids. Kids were so thrilled that we had hard time to make it to the movie as they did not want to leave the games they were playing! We also went to a show called Changing Climate. It was a nice informative show with sheep animation movie highlighting the energy conservation.

The IMAX movie was good but not very interesting for Yash. Next time I will have to figure out something more interesting for the kids. At the end we went to the van de graf generator and Seema and Hursh both went up. Seema had all hairs going up but Hursh hardly had any since he has very short hairs. But it was funny to see people having all their hairs going up like crazy! Kids loved that. There was a sports section also there and there were lot to learn. We tried throwing base ball and see our throwing speeds instantly. Hursh recorded 36 mph and I did 48 maximum. We saw some others going as high as 56 mph. But Hursh was educating me that in the real game the pitchers throw as high as 90 mph with great ease.Conclusion is that I was nit, am not and can not be a baseball pitcher. QED.

Monday was Civic Holiday. I am not sure what is that for. Around 10:00 Am Rohit came to me and asked to go somewhere. I was in complete mood to relax. But considering the fact that summer is such a rarity in Toronto, I motivated myself enough to go “somewhere”! I figured out that Cullen Garden and Miniature Village could be a good choice. We headed for that.

As we entered there, we had ice-cream for all of us as it was very hot day. All we had asked for small and ice cream was huge one for all of us.  We were having difficulty in finishing it. Then we saw a funny mirror. We enjoyed that very much. I tried to capture some image but it was not that easy and watching the mirror itself was a great fun!

We proceeded further and as we entered the park, the first attraction was a nice peacock made of plants. It was very beautiful. I was reading about the history of the park and was surprised to read that it was a couple’s effort which made such a big tourist attraction. Their meticulous work were indeed reflected in more than one place!

Soon we were taken to a wildflower garden. If someone appreciates the nature he would love it. It is very nicely created and at times one feels that he is in the real deep forest. I particularly enjoyed it a lot. I had so many beautiful views all over. Hursh and Yash were having good time as they had whole jungle to run around.

There were many beautiful flowers and trees to watch. It was getting darker all of a sudden. The sky started looking cloudy and any time it was to rain.

We somehow completed the trip to the wildflower garden and down the hill was a wagon trip waiting for the forest view. But before we could take that, it started raining very heavily. Hursh and Yash were enjoying the slope and maze. We waited for the rain to stop but it lasted over half an hour. We abandoned the idea to take the forest view trip. We stopped for a while in the water slope area for Hursh and Yash to have some fun. Hursh was initially reluctant to go but Yash was ever ready to go in the after. But without Hursh, he was little subdued. He used to go on th top of the slope but could nit muster courage to slope down. Hursh if together with him, then he would imitate him and do whatever he did. Meanwhile as he was blocking the way for other kids, one of the kids just pushed him. He was not prepared and he just splashed in the water! He started crying. Hursh went immediately in water and took control of him very well then on. Hursh that way is a very caring brother. He would not express a lot of affection for him as Yash does very openly, but when it matters he is always there for him! 

We started back for the Miniature Village. But meanwhile rain started very heavily. We had nowhere to hide and we were waiting under the thick leaves of the trees. It was a very good experience. It reminded me of my school days when we used to come from school and if started raining, we would wait under the trees or  shops etc. The earthy smell coming from wet soil was making us feel so good. I enjoyed the rain a lot. The sound of rain water dropping on the leaves made me feel good too. I was capturing some of the images as there was not much to be done anyway! 

Finally the rain stopped. We visited the miniature village. It was an awesome experience. Hursh and Yash were very excited to see this village. I must say that for this alone, I may visit the place again. Yash wanted to lift one house and take home! There were many photographs (including the one below) were taken by Hursh. He has genuine interest developing in photography.

When we were about to leave, Hursh wanted to play the remote controlled car game. He enjoyed it a lot. We had coffee after this and overall we had quite a good day. Kids had lots of fun and we also had not a bad day overall.

At the end Hursh wanted to buy some gifts for himself . We went to gifts and souvenir shop and bought some magnet stones for Hursh and a book for Yash. Hursh also bought one magnetic dart for himself, which he promised that he will keep nicely. He has a habit of being careless with his toys, and I am trying for his improvement on that.

Seema wanted to have dinner in the restaurant at the park itself. I was not particularly hungry but kids too wanted to eat. We went to the restaurant . Grill and Grape is a very nice restaurant and the food were good. Seema ordered Chicken Madagascar (later on she was regretting to have eaten chicken as it was Savan Somvar). I am fine because now I am complete Shakahari (vegetarian) except the fact that I still eat everyone’s bheja!