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Society
A
Village Lost…in Time
 It
was the month of October when the grip of summer heat had loosened over
the North Indian Plains. The lush green of post monsoons was soothing to
the eyes. As we proceeded to Shillong by road the drive from Delhi was
an extremely pleasant one. We started our journey, at the crack of dawn,
as the early morning sun shone behind the morning mist. I guess more
then mist, it was the pollution that had settled the night before.
Whatever it was, it looked beautiful and misty. The sun, in the plains
has a misty hue in the morning rather than the clarity we see in the
hills. As we left behind the concrete jungle of square, rectangular and
high rise buildings, wide roads with forced plantation of trees all
along, I was exited and nostalgic for the route we were following would
lead us through the village of my ancestors; my roots. Mukhmailpur as
spoken and Mukabilpur in papers, a dusty remote village, earlier within
the district of Kanpur but now incorporated in the newly formed district
of Etawah. Approximately 7 to 8 hours drive from Delhi and 7 kilometres
of the main highway.
I was returning after 13 years since the first death anniversary of my
grandmother. Nothing the others said could make me give in to the
suggestion of passing it by, without visiting. I was adamant I had to go
and we did go. After the death of my grandmother, it was no more our
winter holiday destination. However, over the years I always remembered
this place with a lot of nostalgia. There, I felt, my roots belong… and
the feeling has endured over the years.
The last leg of the journey was a dusty bullock cart road with a hump in
the middle all along the 2-kilometer stretch that finally took us to
another world. In this quiet, remote and dusty small village, ‘Time’
seems to have stood still for many a century. Life moved with a
different pace here, unaffected by technology, globalization or the
internet. The only direct connection with the outside world, the radio
that functioned on batteries… there was no electricity. No hospitals and
no schools… but people lived and survived here for eons.
Peacocks adorned the fading horizons of this small picturesque village;
the resplendent kingfisher perched on a nearby tree beside the village
pond. My gaze followed the animals proceeding for their daily drink to
the pond, dangling their bells swaying left to right. A few men were
having their afternoon siesta under the mango tree. Nearby a bore well
pumped water into the fields, a cool breeze whistled and swept through;
a respite on a warm sultry day. It was a warm laid back afternoon, with
all life in suspended form of animation. But, the roaring of our Sumo
engine disturbed the peace, the birds fluttered away and their reverie
disturbed, the men got up trying to identify us. Suddenly there was a
spurt of activity all around, children running after our jeep screaming
in delight followed by the stray dogs barking, the domestic animals
stopped short to turn and gaze at us. People started walking towards the
epicentre of the entire commotion and gathering around us. The news
spread around like wild fire in the village that we had come creating
ripples on an otherwise quiet, laid-back and oblivious afternoon.
As I reached the village, I had a lingering feeling of pain and
yearning… things looked so changed and yet so much the same. The village
was synonymous with my grandmother and she was not there to receive us
for the first time. Even after thirteen years of her death, I felt she
would walk out from somewhere to receive us. The house looked
dilapidated, soulless and deserted, no one lived there now. Life that
brimmed over, when she was alive was lost to the dazzle of city life, as
one by one everyone left, abandoning their ancestral home. Memories
flooded my mind, of year after year when I, my brother and parents would
come in winters… how she would receive us kissing both our hands,
fondling us with love and affection, and then feeding us with the
goodies she had prepared herself. She was a small petite and a
good-looking Brahmin woman whose courage and resilience had endured
difficult times in her life. She had lost nine children, and gave birth
to 14 in all, during her lifetime as she told me, and it was her
alertness and promptness that saved whatever property and land they were
left with in the end, from being stolen by other undeserving relatives
and conniving neighbors. I remember, she would get up in the middle of
the night take a lantern and a stick in the other hand and go off to the
fields to check if anyone was stealing her produce. Frail, petite woman
that she was, I wonder how she could have warded off the robbers if
there were any. However, time and instinct had taught her to protect and
survive in the harsh world. She fought tooth and nail for what was,
rightfully her sons, the share of the family inheritance. Uneducated she
learned to read and write by the sheer dint of her hard work and
determination.
The winding dusty road, in front of her house was endless for her at
some point in her life, it lead to her husband who was serving in
Rajasthan and her eldest son far away in some distant land, of which she
had an imaginary picture in her mind; high mountainous terrains,
cascading, un-containable monsoon rivers, thick dense forests, as he had
described to her, in his letters. She had spent many a day fixing her
eyes on them waiting for a letter or a money order from her son.
Sometimes that wait was endless… dusk would fall and the postman,
nowhere in sight. But as the night would fall and hopes crashed for the
day, she was sure it was postal delay… her son would never fail her, she
was sure. As sure she was, of the sun and the moon above her. However,
tomorrow was another day and the responsibility was on her frail
shoulders to pull through, the family through these difficult times.
But, she had no time to think, by the time she would crash into her bed…
a deep sweeping sleep would consume her, after a hard days work only
dreams could soothe her aching bones… of better days ahead when all her
sons would be as tall as the sugar cane stalks in her fields. Then, she
knew the swaying of her mustard fields would have different meaning for
her… and the echoing sound of the grinding wheat mill -chakki as it is
known- at the distance, would sound like music to her ears.
I remember the last time I saw her, she was not too well but she
insisted upon, coming along to the bus station to see us off. Dragging
her ‘chappals’ double the size of her feet she walked making a flap…
flap sound. There was something in her eyes that day, something I could
not understand, her touch was different too, but I could not grasp … may
be she did. As the bus left and she was enveloped by the dust raised by
it, she faded into my memory; a blurring hazy picture waving from behind
the cloud of dust. The thought that I would not see her alive again,
never cross my mind. But I remembered that look and I can still feel
that touch… it was different from the many other occasions that we
parted. Perhaps she was aware… she did not live long after that. Her
death was peaceful I heard, a life well lived with hard work, endurance
and a steely resolute. Her sons were as tall as the sugarcane stalks in
her fields, it was winter and her mustered fields were swaying with the
wind too, finding solace in the fact that all her children were well
settled by then. She was a success story.
As I left the village that day, heavily laden with longings for the days
gone by… somewhere at a distance the sound of the running grinding mill
resonated… kooooh… kooooh… kooooh…, a far away sound, echoing distinctly
in rhythmic beats, parting the silence gently apart. I looked back I saw
a rich golden hue of the setting sun, filling the canvas, of a picture
perfect village emerging out of the lush green fields… beneath the
‘neem’ tree, by the side of the family well, enveloped by the cloud of
dust… I thought I saw a hazy picture of a small petite figure smiling at
us. I smiled to myself as the cloud of gloom and yearning disappeared…
for, as I beheld her, I knew that in some ways, wherever she was in
which ever consciousness… she was glad that I had come and for those
split seconds, I was in complete unison with her, nature and the
memories… lost in time.
–
Uma Tiwari Tariang
September 9, 2002
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