Pasting the Pieces: Following the mother Goose

Dear Sweetheart,

In these mundane days when I am far from you. I thought to tell you about my life. Life is ephemeral and we gain from it is experience. Experiences that are both sweet and sour, which are two faces of the same coin. It is pure joy to share my experiences with you. Last time when I was returning from Delhi to Chakradharpur, the train momentarily stopped at Mohammadganj, my birthplace. I stepped down at the station. Though I had forgotten how the station looked, but suddenly my whole childhood flashed. I was quite emotional. I touched the ground and promised to return again to relive my childhood. In this letter I will be recalling my early childhood days.

I remember that when I used to return from my village to Mohammadganj through Palamau Express in the night, there used to be no station. Just a guard room and station was deserted. We lived in a colony near hill side. My father was working for Govt. in building a dam over River Koel.



Time and date is not important. It was Thursday early morning when my mother gave birth to me in the kitchen of our house. It was quite a big day as lot of officers and lot of people had gathered in my house. A nurse (Daayi Maa) was called (it was big thing at that time). I was the third child of my family. My father distributed cold drinks and sweets. Someone declared I will be a big bureaucrat. Let's see how true it becomes.

Hill-Top Views

Like any child I also claim my childhood was a dream childhood. We lived in a small quarter which was surrounded by gardens. A hill was nearby just 100 meters away. Can you imagine my uncles used to carry me to top of the hill on their shoulders where I could see the nature very close by? I could see deer, monkeys and small natural waterfalls. It was a treat to watch. We used to collect different fruits and flowers. There was a guest house on the hill top. On special functions our father used to take us where we enjoyed parties. We were not allowed to go out after the evening as the place was infamous for wolves and lions. Once my father and his friend were going in the dark, when they saw glowing eyes. They sparked the torch on it; it was lion that fled away. Probably he was not hungry.

The Holy Cow

We had a cow that my mother took good care of. She had bad temper and did not allow anyone to go near her. Every time I went near it, she would show her anger. We loved her calves. It was quite thrilling to watch the cow giving birth to a calf. Many people used to come. It was thought to be auspicious. You cannot drink milk for few days after the birth of a calf. In my childhood I did not like drinking milk. Its smell was too bad for my nose and taste was too bad for my tongue. But my mother would find ways to oblige me to drink it. My mother used to worship her everyday and provided her all the food every day.

The conviviums

Behind our house we had a huge guava tree which bore red pulped guavas. There was also Mango and Baer tree. It was quite vegetated area often we would see snakes near the hand-pump. During childhood, me and my brother had friends with the children of our neighbor namely Badal and Chandan. We with our sisters organized picnics. We were gifted small utensils for cooking by one man whom we used to call Manager Chacha. He had also taught us how to make beautiful flowers and designs using Crêpe paper. We used to gather wood and vegetable from our gardens and cooked it near the Baer tree. We used to simply relish that.

The TV Show

We were not rich people but I never had dearth of anything. People around me were so friendly. I used to think my father provides us the best quality of food and toys. I did not like toys. My big brother used to like Tobu Cycle. I never thought life had any sorrow: just happiness. In that time my father brought a TV and VCR from Calcutta. It was the time when Doordarshan had started airing Ramayana. Nobody in nearby had television, it was quite a big thing then. On Sundays everybody used to bath themselves before 9 am and get ready. People from nearby villages also used to come. TV was placed in central hall and the whole hall and Verandah used to fill up. People used to watch through window. Can you imagine the scene where women carrying babies used to peep through the window for an hour to watch it? When program was aired everybody used to remain calm and were quite emotionally attached to it. I could recall them singing the hymns and songs with television stars. It was unbelievable to see tears rolling from their eyes at scenes like abduction of Sita. After the show there used to be discussions in small groups and my mother used to serve them tea. People used to discuss about the characters. At that time Arun Govil was treated as god. As he would appear on television people used to bow to him and utter "Jai Shree Ram".

Dancing on tunes

I was quite an adamant child who used to get anger very quickly. Then my mother had hard times to soothe me. My mother is very caring and courageous. When I was ill, my mother alone would carry me to hospitals in Dehri-On-Son via train. She always took care of me. My sisters also adored me. I gave them hard times with my tantrums, spoiled their things. We had cable sort of connection. The cable was monitored from our home. For fun we used to switch it off and acted we had not done anything. At that time the cable operator used to telecast films at particular time. Suppose we had class in the morning and returned home in afternoon and if a film was being aired we used bunk the class and watch the movie. He used to air two films namely Sholay and Shahenshah. I think he had aired these films more than 25 times. We had remembered all the dialogues. Just imagine me dancing on the songs and delivering the dialogues of Amitabh Bachchan (as a child).

The Radio

At that time cricket had made so much impact. All India radio was the sole channel and we used to listen to it, mainly news. I was too amazed to think how does sound comes from that small box. In this respect let me tell you my mother's story. In her childhood she was very much fascinated by two things radio and train. When my nana brought radio, she was quite amazed to hear the voice coming out of it. She would sit down in front of it and try to find out how a man can sit inside it and deliver music for such long time. I will tell about the train later.
The Driver

There was place nearby called Bhim Chulha where the legend says that Bhim cooked food before going to kill Bakasura who tormented the village Ekachakra. My mother used to go there for worship. I cannot remember that place but my mother used to tell it had huge cooking pot made up of rock. My father was working for the building of dam on river Koel. I was quite fascinated to see the large cranes. The drivers would carry me with them and I used to see them working. My favorite toy was an old Jeep lying dead in front of our house. I would sit down on the driver's seat and imagine driving it for hours. My sisters and friends also sat beside me. We used to make sound of horn and vehicle by ourselves. While playing when our tooth broke, we used to dig earth and put it inside as we were told out of it a tree will grow out.

The Pets

Like my ancestors were fond of Horses, our parents too loved animals. My mother used to keep water in small old utensils for birds, fed the dogs and the crows. We also had the same passion. We used to have parrot which could utter "Siya Ram". It loved chillies and guavas. We were also fond of guinea pigs and used to have a lot of them. We would play with them for hours. It was our duty to feed them grass. We used to grow grass and collect water for them. We also had a rabbit. All of us loved to play with it. But when a cat used to kill them we would become too sad and hated the cats.

The Bahrupiyas

I was quite shy. I didn't used to come out in front of guests. If my head was shaved for religious ceremony, I would not come out of the home for days, until some hair used to grow out. At that time there was a tradition of Bahrupiya (People disguised in different make ups). They would come in our colonies. I would think them as real and get scared and used to lock myself in my home until they had gone. They used to disguise as Lord Shiva, Daku or English Man. I was scared as people used to tell they will abduct me. We used to collect our hair after shaving as in exchange we used to get Son papdi. Barter system still existing there. We used to get lots of things in exchange of old clothes and utensils.

The Underground River

Once our family went to Prayag Raj (Banaras) during khumbh. I remember walking on some tin sheet when someone told us that we were walking on river Saraswati, the embedded river. We took dips in the river. We used to come to Patna while going to our village. Once we went to Circus, like any child I was quite amazed to see the clowns and terrified to hear the roar of the tiger. My heart pounded when I saw them performing the acrobatic skills. I dreaded to see them hanging above with single hand and swinging from one corner to another. We tasted our first ice-cream there. My mother did not like it. She said it was not eatable. Our clothes were brought from small shops at Hathwa market. Once when we went for shopping, I and my small sister got lost. We started searching for our parents from store to store. We were about to cry, when I saw them shopping.
The Early Education

In small ceremony I think during Saraswati Puja I was given the chalk to write "अ", then "क". We used to study in a small class where children of all age would study together guided by a teacher. The school ran on chalk and board donated by my father. My father had also arranged private teacher to teach us counting mathematical table (pahada).He was a tough one and we got severe beating from him from wooden scales. My mother and grandmother would tell us stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata. I liked the story of Aruni (the boy who lay down in the field whole night so that the land of his master was not enundated with water) , Sudama (who did not share his food with Shree Krishna, still lord helped him later )and Gaja & Grah (Gaja was an elephant who was very loyal devotee of Lord Krishna whose leg was caught by Grah, the crocodile and called the lord for help. )

The Extras

We used to play a lot of games like Hide and seek. There were lots of places to hide. But my favorite place to hide was a room near the verandah. We also used to play with marbles, pitto(where you have to aim at some small pieces kept a distance with ball and arrange it without the ball beating you ), gili-danda and lali-danda. I was not good at games. I liked roaming in jungles and loved gardening. We used to grow large sized marigold. We even grew vegetables like brinjal, potato and ground nut. I used to love eating raw ground nuts. The most fascinating part was that I loved the smell of the first drops of rain falling on the ground. We loved to collect ice falling with the rain, even ate it several times. When there was rain with the daylight on we used to say that "somewhere a marriage of fox was going on". The rainbows that would appear after rain would attract me and I would inquire where they were being formed.

The Journey Begins

Once an accident occurred while we were playing Lali-danda (where we have to hit a piece of small crafted wood with a stick), the wood hit my brother's eyes. It was bleeding profusely. He was taken to Japla (nearby town) for treatment. After that we stopped playing and it was decided that whole family would move to Patna for our schooling.

Like any child I did not have maturity to remember all the events. These events might be common day to day life experiences but joy of a child is unique. You always want to be a child to get away from all tensions. Hope you liked my part of the story. Hope to hear from you. 


With love 
Priyadarshi




P.S. Mohammadganj has now been infected by the naxalites. The dam is working. Government had spent crores of rupees on building that dam. Cranes and heavy machines bought are decaying there. Now the place has become deserted. Nobody want to go there. All the charm is gone.