A World Within Page 5

  ‘Oh! You do not know. Every child needs parents. It makes such a difference,’ he says then adds, ‘You cannot understand this as you have not gone through anything like that and you have not known displacement.’

  ‘Whenever I returned home from school or college during vacations I was treated like a king by my father and the villagers were in awe of me. I too considered myself above them, way above. After all I was the only one from the village going to a college. Then I became the first MA of Bilaspur State. It was a proud thing.’

  ‘My mother gave me an extra helping of butter; I got the pickles, curd, buttermilk ahead of my brother and sister. Villagers came to me requesting me to write letters for them, or to read letters or other revenue papers, official letters. I enjoyed the wonder and reverence that I saw in their eyes.’

  ‘You too considered yourself special, Dadoo?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, everyone in the house would get up early and start working. My brother, Prakash, and sister, Maya, would get up at four and start doing household chores, but I could sleep till late. My mother would not let anyone disturb me and whenever Prakash and Maya complained your grandfather would just smile. I would get up at my will and hot water was ready for my bath.’

  ‘You were a spoilt child,’ I say with mischief in my eyes.

  ‘May be,’ he says calmly, ‘whenever I expressed my desire to eat something your Dadi would cook that thing immediately. I was the male child, the elder one and on top of that I was educated and had seen the world.’

  ‘But there were other things too that made me feel special. The villagers used to wait for my annual vacations to get their paper work done. I enjoyed that attention. As I grew up I started to feel that for people I was important, they looked at me with awe and respect,’ he recalls.

  It suddenly occurs to me that he got all the importance and attention but no love. He got love only from his mother. Even his brother and sister did not love him, they too were in awe of him. His father was like most men of his generation who never showed any emotion or affection. The villagers who came to him to get their letters read did not love him either. This led to a void forming deep inside him that he never fully understood but it was there. So may be that is the reason why he longs to go back to his roots but at the same time he runs away from it as he knows that there is no one there to welcome him.

  ‘My father was not a typical moneylender. He was a kind man who loved people and helped them. They reciprocated this help by making him the pradhan of the gram panchayat every time the elections were held; but this respect was only for him,’ he mumbles.

  Dadoo has another part to his personality, a part that does not want control over people but wants people to be part of his life. He wants to be able to share with others, so he always tried to make friends.

  He said to me once, ‘At times I felt that my father showed me as a trophy to everyone, that I was a matter of showing off. This robbed me of love of people. They just looked at me with admiration, they did not care for me. And remember this is very important – care and love, along with respect.’

  He repeats the same things again and again. Earlier I used to tell him that he had already told me this, but now I realize that he does not remember. So I nod as he repeats the story, ‘My father was a moneylender. The interest that he earned was his income. He used to pledge gold too. Once all gold was stolen from the house, it was more than a hundred tolas, I think. Since it belonged to other people, it had to be returned. That was a difficult time for us. Your Dadi had to do a lot of work so that the gold could be returned. It took us decades to return the lost gold.’

  ‘Why did you not put it in the bank lockers?’ I ask.

  ‘At that time there were no lockers, it was always kept in the house, buried underground.’

  ‘Tell me something about Dadi, was she strict?’ I ask.

  Dadoo looks at me bewildered, ‘What do you mean? You cannot define a mother. Strict or not strict, she was a mother after all. She was affectionate, she never scolded us.’

  ‘Did she discriminate against girls?’ I ask bashfully.

  ‘At that time equality was not what you understand by it now. Boys and girls were not equal. Parents preferred sons. Those were different times. Now there is equality. At that time parents thought that girls were to be married off. That was all. You have not seen those times. Those were bad times. There were only two girls in my college and there were a couple of them in the school. You could not have lived even for a day in those times. It was a bad time, very bad time. Bahut ganda samay tha larkiyon ke liye [it was very ugly time for the girls].’

  ‘I would not have cared, I would have set people right,’ I say haughtily.

  ‘This you are saying now because you are living in today’s world. Had you been living then you would not have said this.’

  I nod trying to understand. I have never experienced discrimination on the base of gender in our family. We have always been Mala, Vikram, Rewa and Deepak – individuals with our own likes and dislikes. Dadoo has never said ‘I have two sons and two daughters.’ It has always been ‘I have four children’.

  ‘Tell me something interesting from the days when you started teaching,’ I ask changing the topic.

  ‘I used to give money to a colleague to provide me company in Bilaspur, my first posting. You would not find people to talk to in those days. Moreover, there were very few educated people with whom you could have discussion.’

  ‘Money? You paid money to someone to talk to you?’ I ask astonished.

  ‘Yes, to give me company. I paid him by the hour,’ he chuckles.

  Dadoo never ceases to amaze me with his unconventional ways.

  11

  20 May 2010

  It is a bright morning, I am looking at the flowers blooming wondering whether it will be the last season for the feast of flowers in our garden in Solan. Dadoo seldom does gardening now.

  After watering the plants, Dadoo comes and joins me.

  ‘Kaam theek chal raha hai [is your work going on well]?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ I mumble.

  ‘Why? What is the problem?’ he asks anxiously.

  ‘I am not able to do my work.’

  ‘Because of us?’

  ‘No, it is just that I don’t do it.’

  ‘Is it a new book?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Bilaspur.’

  He looks at me blankly.

  ‘On you,’ I add.

  ‘Me, what about me?’ he asks bewildered.

  ‘On your life, your lifestyle and culture of your village.’

  ‘Oh you will have to go there, stay there, and talk to the people. Only then will you be able to write anything. What are you doing sitting here, go there and do some research,’ he says.

  ‘Tell me something about Bhakhra Dam,’ I ask suddenly.

  Dadoo, almost instantly starts narrating, ‘We got land in Kuljar after the submergence of Chaunta, our original home. Raja Anand Chand, the ruler of Bilaspur state tried his best to save the ancient town of Bilaspur. He wanted to lower the height of the dam to a level, which would have saved the town. It was a beautiful city on the banks of Satluj, with famous plains of Sandu, palaces, temples and well- planned residential and market areas. The plain of Sandu was a huge flat grassland of about one and a half miles in circumference. Submergence started in 1954 and thirty-six villages went down in the waters of Satluj. This led to dispossession of people but the process has not stopped. We are still homeless. The feeling of being uprooted ends only when one dies, not before that.’

  ‘Bhakra Dam gave electricity,’ I try to cheer him up.

  ‘Yes, but to whom? People have to pay for it, it is not free. Those who lost their homes could never settle again. You have been born in good times and have seen good life. Life at the bottom of the society is very different. People who beg in the streets, they too have a life. You have not seen that. That time almost everyone in the villages
was poor.’

  ‘What has this got to do with Bhakhra Dam?’ I ask confused.

  ‘We were uprooted and got land somewhere else. It is very difficult to resettle and build a new life after being displaced like this. The land allotted to us was barren. It was so difficult for poor people,’ he says wistfully.

  ‘But you were rich,’ I persist.

  ‘We were moneylenders. We were better than them but many times people did not have anything to repay the loans, so we filed cases against them. It was a profession, we lent money on interest and if the person failed to repay we filed cases. That was all.’

  I am intrigued, ‘Did you torture people who did not pay, as we read in stories and watch in films?’

  He looks at me in shock, ‘No, not like that. It was not like what you see in films, the bad moneylenders. Fifty years back there was lot of poverty. We helped people.’

  ‘Oh, could you explain, Dadoo?’ But his attention is diverted.

  ‘I played bansuri [flute] on the banks of streams near our house in Chaunta. We used to take bath in the stream, I learnt swimming there. Soap was only provided to men; even we weren’t allowed to use it everyday. Women used rakh [ash] to clean themselves up.’

  ‘We witnessed our homes, villages and centuries old town and its pristine charm vanishing into the depths of Gobind Sagar Lake: Old town had temples going back to seventh and eighth centuries. Temples of Rangnath-ji and Murli Manohar were so grand and beautiful.’

  I have heard it all before. This part of his life is intact in his memory and he remembers it minutely.

  ‘Raja’s palace and the Rang Mahal were majestic with its sheesh mahal [hall of mirrors] and murals and artistic splendour. You know Bilaspur was a planned town? At that time it had different areas earmarked for the bazaars, public residences, palaces, offices, gardens and other institutions. There were so many peepal, mango and jamun trees. There were huge gardens with beautiful flowers. Satluj flowed near the groves of fruit trees and vast paddy fields on either sides of the river.’

  12

  31 May 2010

  Today Dadoo again remembered his ancestral home.

  ‘Chaunta was the most beautiful place in the world till the dam came into being. The land was so fertile that even gold was cheaper in comparison. But you know your grandfather sent me to Bhanoopli to study at the age of four. I had to stay with my mama-ji,’ he said lost in his thoughts.

  ‘It was good, Dadoo,’ I say trying to pep him up.

  ‘What good? I was so small, only a baby when I was sent away from my parents. Since the age of four I did not get their love and affection. That time there were no schools in my village. ’

  ‘Dadoo tell me something about your school,’ I ask interested.

  ‘My first day at school …,’ he paused and then continued, ‘I had to go alone and I was terrified, you know. I thought that someone will take me to the school on the first day just like when I had gone to the fields in my village for the first time and I had held my father’s hand. But my mama-ji simply told me, “Look, the school is quite near from here and other children are also going, you just tag along with them.”’

  ‘Oh,’ I murmur as I see the fear in his eyes, the fear of a four-year-old.

  ‘I was terrified at that time, I really did not know what to do, where I was going, what was happening, what exactly the school is going to be like and I tremblingly followed the four other kids going to the school. There were kids walking behind me too but they were all in a gang, they knew each other, I was the only lone guy travelling to school.’

  I had started feeling guilty as it dawned on me that school was a traumatic experience for him. Before I could change the subject he said, ‘I remember when it rained very badly and I was drenched to the bone, shivering in cold, I would dream to get a small glass of hot milk with freshly cooked food upon reaching home. I longed for something hot and warm, but then a dread settled that it should not happen the way it happened yesterday, or what happened every day. Whenever I reached home and asked for food, I was curtly told, “Is this the time for food? No one has eaten yet!” The look in their eyes was not inviting at all and my hunger would instantly die, and once everyone had finished eating, they would serve some stale maize rotis – must have been two-days old,’ he paused.

  ‘It was dry and hard, I could barely eat it. They used to give me some pickle with the rotis, but it would only have the masala.’

  I recalled he told me that Dadi would always serve him a soft, hot maize roti – fresh from the chulah with a blob of white butter – and forced him to eat an extra roti every time.

  Now I badly wanted to change the topic.

  ‘Day after day, I always felt that I did not get enough food to eat in that house, I was always hungry. Every day was a struggle because every day your stomach asked for food,’ he whispered.

  ‘But, Dadoo, when grandfather came—’

  ‘—Yes,’ he interrupted, ‘whatever joy I got was when my father came to meet me, he brought pinnis and other eatables made by my mother like khoya and kachori. He would also give me money and buy me little things. But he only stayed there for a day or two.’

  ‘Dadoo, he had work to do …’ I add.

  ‘Those were the best days, I would get to eat the desi ghee pinnis, ladoos, panjeeri, mathis and other homemade delicacies including pickle, but the bag of pinnis vanished as father went back, I never got the snacks later.’

  I am confused, Dadoo definitely did not have an exciting childhood, he had education but with it there was a separation from his family. He told me that whenever there was a holiday of two-three days he waited for his father to come. He waited every Saturday for someone to come and take him away to the village, he was too small to travel on his own, but no one came. He wanted to run away but was scared of his father. If he ran back to his village and reached home, his mother would be so happy to see him but his father would be angry, and scold him – so he stayed there, sad and lonely.

  His father came two or three times in a year to see him and once in a year at the time of annual vacations to take him home. But for him every week was traumatic and every Saturday was painful, every Sunday a torture. He had to stay put, help in the house – bring water, clean utensils, help in cleaning the house, carry chopped woods and do other sundry jobs. Sunday was also the day when he had to hear his cousin’s scathing comments. They made fun of him, ridiculed him. He cried when he was alone, but in front of others he always put on a brave face as if nothing mattered to him.

  I am quiet, I have nothing to say. His mind shifts and he speaks highly of his father who educated him.

  I retort, ‘How great was your grandfather who made your father an engineer in the year 1920!’

  He nods understandingly, ‘For a few years your grandfather had worked in Lahore. He had done his engineering from Lucknow.’

  ‘Why did he leave the job?’ I ask.

  ‘Family circumstances – my grandfather died at a very young age, his brothers were also very young. So he had to come back and become a moneylender like his father.’

  I am glad he remembers his past clearly.

  13

  3 June 2010

  ‘I want you to read this,’ Dadoo says to me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This,’ he hands me a photo copied piece of paper.

  ‘From where did you get this?’

  ‘It was in my files.’

  I nod and read, ‘Bilaspur lies in a spacious valley through which the Setlej [sic] winds its long and fertilising course, while, in the distance, high and waving hills crowned with villages, stretched for several miles, the snowy peaks of the Himalaya being distinctly visible on the horizon. The valley is extremely fertile and every tropical plant flourishes in richer profusion here, than in most other parts of Hindusthan [sic], as if the great author of all nature has lavished his gifts on it without any reserve. The sun was sinking when I first gazed on this beautiful scene; the river rolled proudly on be
neath the garden where I stood, surrounded on every side by a treasury of fragrant flowers, among which, rich orange and citron-trees entangled with jasmines, and groups of magnolias, wafted their exquisite perfume around, in the descending dews. The stars and moon rose one by one, not a breath was felt; the lofty palms rustled, and gently stirred their leaves, as if some spirit breathed upon them; the tress were lighted up by fire flies, and within their deep recesses was heard the soft twittering of the birds and shriller tones of a kind of mantis, which has its dwelling in citron trees; in the distance bright lamp shining through the night pointed out the temple, where loud voices and noisy drums were sounding to the prays of their idols; the fantastic costumes, the dreamy air, all combining together, might well have inspired the coldest spectator to exclaim, as he gazed. This is the very India of which I have dreamed!’

  I look at the paper again, it is from Travels in Kashmir and the Punjab by Baron Charles Hugel, a German traveller. He had visited Bilaspur in 1838.

  ‘How many places do you remember of your past, Dadoo?’ I ask.

  ‘Una, Bhanupli, Daroli, Anandpur Sahib, Bhabour Sahib – I have relations in all these places. Your grandfather did matric from Una.’

  We are quiet again and then he says, ‘Sometimes, I feel that how could I be a good man when I was not even brought up by my parents but always stayed outside in peoples’ houses, at relatives’ homes.’

  ‘You are a good man, Dadoo.’

  He shakes his head, ‘I had no shoulder to cry on and no one to love. In the boarding school during my tenth, I ate clay and limestone. There was no one to tell me that this was wrong. At my mama-ji’s place many a times I was ill-treated and given leftover food.’

  I feel sad and give him a hug.

  ‘I miss my parent’s love and wonder how life would have been different if I had lived with them as my kids have lived with me.’