COUNTRY ROADS....

Our house with the tall roof, once upon a time.

I recently visited my remote village which is actually back of the beyond. It is located in one of the most backward districts of the country. The district is known as Garhchiroli. My village is known as Kurul, that is how my father spelt it although I think that it should be spelt as Kurud as that is how it is pronounced.

Kurul to this day in 2016, does not have a railway station, the nearest railway station is at Wadsa which is six kilometres away. Wadsa now has broad gauge railway tracks but in the olden days it had only a narrow gauge railway track. My village  is now connected by a motorable road, and I am told that a bus does visit the village everyday. In olden days  the only mode of transport from the nearest railway station, was the bullock cart. 

I have memories of travelling in the bullock cart on a road which can best be described today as a roller coaster ride, as the road was very bumpy because the track was made only by the wheels of the bullock cart. My family owned different kinds of bullock carts, one was a "rengi", one was a covered cart and a few others too, the names of which are not known to me.

The Primary school about 10 years ago.

From that village where there was no electricity, no road, no Middle school too, my father understood the need for education. He went from Kurul to Wadsa, to Brahmapuri, to Nagpur and finally to London  to educate himself. He always got Merit scholarship from the British Government of India from Class eight onwards, as he always stood first in every class.  In 1949 after becoming an Engineer from London, he returned to India to serve his country.

The school today.

He was employed with the Government of India which had then started building a newly freed country. That is the reason that we, my two brothers and I went all over the country wherever daddy, who belonged to the prestigious Industrial Management Pool(IMP) got posted, from Hirakud dam in Orissa to Nagarjunasagar dam in A.P., Kotah in Rajasthan, Bhurkunda in Jharkhand, to Bailadila (Bastar)Iron ore project in Chattisgarh,  Kiriburu in Orissa to Panna Diamond Mines in M.P. We got an overdose of this vast country and learnt about the cuisine, the customs, traditions, language, culture, History and Geography of each place practically, always on the spot. The kind of education that we were exposed to is quite unbelievable and actually enviable.

Hats off to my father who accepted any challenge and posting willingly, and my ever ready mother who trudged along wherever my father went ungrudgingly. All of us siblings stayed in the nearest boarding schools and went home during holidays, as most of the places that my dad was posted to did not have good educational facility. With the limited resources that they had my parents had decided to invest in our education.

 Kurul therefore, remained  in our memory as the place that we belonged to. For a number of years my father always wrote the address of Kurul  as his permanent place of residence. I remember that place very well as we went there often as children, but the visits became less frequent after my grand parents died.

On my most recent visit, I found that the place has changed a lot. The road is metalled, the old school building is dilapidated, and no one except my own family members recognised me. 

This once upon a time was tiger land,  teak land, tendu land, and Mahua land. Now the Tadoba Tiger Reserve is just next door and Mahua trees still stand in our fields. So many tales had been told to me about this place by my father, that I could relate to a lot of landmarks that I saw.

As I stood on the land that my grandfather had bought, I looked as far as my eyes could see and I was told that it was all owned by my grand father. In the third generation, this land has now been split, yet it is still ours and remains in the family.

Our ancestral house has been broken down. That was the house which my father with his elder brother had helped in building. With their tiny little hands they would make small balls of mud  which would be carried to the place where the house was being built.Those balls of mud were used in the construction of the walls. All that labour, all that work has gone because time has taken its toll. 

That small kitchen where my grand mother made aambil( A soup made of Jowar-millet, during summer season) for the people as well as animals is no longer there. The cowshed called "gotha"where lovely cows, bullocks rested at night is now plain land where a garden grows. The beautiful arched massive gate with a latticed balcony is now non existent. This majestic gate with rooms on its first floor and a balcony was built with the money that my father sent from London. As a lone sentinel of those times is my grandfather's well which still stands steadfast in front of our house. 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new", what happens to memories I wonder.... they remain, oh yes they remain, forever, they do not yield place to new. Our memory capacity is infinite, therefore we can keep adding to it.

My brothers and I have moved on in life, we do not have any rustic element in us, but then you cannot take Kurul away from any of us, we belong to Kurul and will always trace our ancestry there.