My father was born into a
farmer’s family and before him his father. We belong to a farming community. We
have always been tilling our lands. In the past, along with farming, we also fought
with the assorted rulers ranging from Razia Sultan to the Mughals and the
British. In Khushwant Singh’s words: “The Jat was born the worker and the
warrior. He tilled his land with his sword girded round his waist.”
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| Sarson ke Khet - captured by my first digital camera - a point and shoot Olympus |
Our worldly possessions
were a pair of bullocks, a plough, few buffaloes and some land. Times changed.
Youngsters aspired to move out of the villages. Families were large and the
land holdings small. Armed forces and the police was the logical choice for the
born warriors known for their courage and fortitude. Father too moved out of the
village, stayed with relatives and got a college degree. Hopes of a big family
and an entire village rested on him.
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| 2017 is going to be bumper harvest |
He eventually came to
Delhi where he got his big break in Delhi Police. With time, he moved into the
police quarters in Lutyens’ Delhi. We kids came along, born in perhaps the most
elite address in whole of India – Chanakya Puri, house to pretty roads, embassies,
cars with diplomatic plates and Chanakya theatre and Nirula’s!
Over the years, the
village where Dad was born and where he grew up would keep pulling him back. He
would visit his village whenever he could manage leave. Once a year we too made
the trip. The summers would always make one of us sick. Instead of good times
the trips turned into disasters. It was decided that now trips would be made in
winters during the Christmas holidays.
A week before the trip an
inland letter was posted to the village announcing our impending arrival. Dad usually
was not part of these longish trips.We would wait for the mini bus (yes, these
were private buses and for some reason were smaller than the usual DTC buses)
at the corner of Sardar Patel Marg and Willingdon Crescent. The bus carrying
the excited kids would lurch its way to the ISBT Kashmere Gate. To its credit ISBT
then smelled as bad those days like it does now. Mom would drag us through the
chaos looking for the stand where the roadways buses ply for Mathura.
The bus with Mathura /
Agra sign pulls in and there is a mad scramble to get in. Bags and
handkerchiefs are thrown through the windows to mark the seats. When the dust
settles we had just managed to get ourselves a seat. Roadways bus journeys are
a world onto themselves. Just as everyone is settling there is a sharp rap of
knuckles on the metal ceiling of the bus. The bus falls silent. The performance
begins. The salesman is selling candies – candies for kids, candies that will
help you cope with motion sickness, candies for timepass and candies to gift your
relatives. The sales pitch, the voice modulation is top-notch. Zig Ziglar would
be proud - Product Price Place Promotion at its best. “Yes, of course you can try
for free”.“Oh yes, since this is company scheme you get discount too”. “The
orange candy is our best selling flavour and these are the last few packets
left.”
At other times the salesmen
would promise to get rid of your 20 year old kabz with this churan, fix that
pyorrhea with just a rub of this powder, turn you into a bestselling upanyas
writer with these pens and turn your kids into Picassos if they start
practising in these colouring books. Once the salesman doubling up as a dentist
pulled out a decaying teeth. The relieved patient finally smiled after days of
agony. The customers fall over each other to lap up the assorted items. Kids
hanker after their mothers for the candies. Just sit back and enjoy the show.
The UP Roadways bus tears
through the highway amid mustard and wheat fields. Roasted peanuts smell
mingles with the tang of oranges. Infants wail. Somebody has puked in the aisle
- the candy apparently didn’t work. Bidi smoke wafts through the interiors of
the bus.
At Mathura, we change the
bus that would bring us closer to our village. Now these buses that run in the
interiors of district are special. Bumping on rutted tracks the whole body
would shudder, the window panes rattle as if hailstorms are raining on the roof,
the engine would scream and the gears grind before dropping into the slot – a
cacophony cocktail no Hollywood sound engineer can ever create. It was miracle
that the bus did not disintegrate. There was some unseen superglue holding the
entire contraption together. Mom has begun to glance out of the window
periodically. She sees something and yells for the driver to stop.
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| Photo Credit - Mr. Ranbir Singh Phogat |
India Post had delivered
the letter. Our cousin brother is waiting by the roadside. The late model shiny wooden
cart shod with wooden wheels sits gleaming under the winter sun while the bullocks graze nearby. The
passengers look at our waiting ride with total envy. We tumble out of the still
intact bus. Smiles and greetings are exchanged. Yes we have grown up since he
last saw us. Bullocks are harnessed to the cart, bags are loaded, a sheet is
spread and we grab our spots. Brother
raises the stick, yells to the bullocks, pops the clutch ..er.. tugs at one of
the tails and we are off.
From the mini bus few hours
ago to two roadway bus rides and now to the bullock cart; the thrill continues.
Brother decides to raise the thrill levels a notch higher. The cart is rolling
through the narrow dirt track lined with high wild grass. “Robbers hide among
the tall grass, waiting to pounce upon the passers-by.” We go very quiet –only
the jingling bells of the bullocks providing some relief in the silence as we
start seeing things in the grass.
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| The Yamuna Expressway - the faster option now! |
The coming of cars ended
the thrill and romance of travelling to the village. While in the past it would
be few days trips, now it is mostly a one day return trip. Today you are
travelling to attend the engagement of your cousin brother’s son. The Yamuna
Expressway built to give competition to American freeways provide additional thrill
of darting people across the lanes. Built of white concrete, the best
expressway in India is a peephole into the changing roadscape across the
country. Few kms on the smooth tarmac and you want to keep going to the end of
the Indian peninsula.
Today you will get off at
the Aligarh exit to dive into some village life on the way to the waiting ceremony.
The last few kms on the broken service road provide some
throwback to the days of yore.
Here is a Photo Journey –
hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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| The change from the smooth tarmac to the dusty broken service road is sudden - expressway on one side and fields on the other |
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| The first bird sighting is the scruffy and fairly common altitudinal migrant Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) feasting on a carcass by the side of the service lane |
