A day in the life of Chandru

A team of young surveyors was carrying out feasibility surveys across the district of Yavatmal, in central Maharashtra. Surveys were extensive and exhaustive. The main objective was to determine the sites where borewell's could be drilled so as to provide the villages with clean drinking water.
It involved walking close to 25-30 kilometers in a day. The dust and heat were unrelenting too. With temperatures regularly touching a high of around 45 degrees, it was a sweat bath for most of the day. The group of surveyors split up across the length and breadth of the district and worked tirelessly for days together. Each night they would assemble back at the camp and discuss about the day’s experiences over dinner.
Mapping a district is no small job. It also involves working with authorities like the Village Panchayat.
A newly promoted lad, Chandru with two of his colleagues was working in a village near Pusad taluka in Yavatmal. The day had been grueling enough with the sun showing the residents of the sleepy town how brightly he could shine. On finishing the day’s work the team went on to the village Panchayat office to give them the details of the scheme they were working on.
Chandru had joined the department 8 months ago. His sharp mind and an excellent work ethic had seen him being promoted to a sub-senior role quickly. It had been the fastest ever promotion in the department. Coming from a rural background, Chandru understood the ideology of the scheme facilitated by the government and hence had taken it upon himself to make it a success in jurisdiction.
The Sarpanch (head of the village) an old man of about 70, welcomed the group and patiently listened to what Chandru had to say. He was a lean man with a handle bar moustache. Wrapped in a loin cloth below his waist in traditional Maharashtrian style, he wore a shirt made of cotton. To save himself from the severe heat, he wore a pagadi. Sarpanch listened to Chandru and his team patiently, making a few inquiries about how soon will the project be completed and so on. Having understood the scheme completely, he thanked Chandru and his team on the good work they were doing. He called his grandson Nandu who had made his way into the Panchayat office trying to make sense of the sudden buzz around the place. Sarpanch asked Nandu to run along to the Tea stall across the road and order for 4 cups of special Tea and biscuits.
Nandu, dashed away to the Tea stall. He returned quickly with a long face and asked his grandfather to come aside.
“The tea stall owner wont serve us tea anymore. He says the Panchayat office owes him a lot of money and he won’t give anything on credit” said Nandu in a low tone.
“Arre, why does he not understand? We are not doing a party here. Did you tell him that the tea is for the touring party?” questioned Sarpanch.
“Yes ajoba. He won’t budge. He wants his dues to be cleared first. Even after we do that, he won’t give anything on credit”
“Oh god! This is bad. Those people are doing so much to help solve our drinking water problems and we are not in a position to offer them a cup of tea” he said in depressed voice.
“Let me go and speak to Mahadev (tea stall owner) maybe he will understand”
And Sarpanch walked towards the tea stall.
Chandru and his team were sitting in the small office space. Chandru got up from his seat to help himself to another glass of cool water from the earthen pot. He just happened to gaze outside the window and saw the Sarpanch speaking to the tea stall owner. The owner, Mahadev, was shaking his head and hands in dismissive manner. Intrigued by what was happening at the tea stall, Chandru stood still watching as the drama enfolded. After a long round of persuasion, the Sarpanch failing to convince Mahadev took off his pagadi and placed it near Mahadev’s feet asking him to relent. Chandru could not believe his eyes. Sarpanch, such an elderly man the head of the village was pleading with a Tea stall owner to relent and lend him 4 cups of tea on credit. Tears welled up in Chandru's eyes. He called out to Nandu and said,
”Nandu, we have to leave urgently. A lot of area is yet to be covered and we need to finish it before dusk today. Please thank Sarpanch sahib for his hospitality on our behalf and tell him that we will have tea the next time we come over. Also assure him that all of you will have clean drinking water very soon. We must leave now to finish our work for the day”
He gestured to his colleagues to make a quick move and they left the office silently from the other exit.
Sarpanch walked back dejectedly towards his office clearly embarrassed and crest fallen. Nandu was standing near the steps. In a bid to try and hide his emotions from his grandson he looked away.
“Ajoba, surveyor sahib said that they needed to leave urgently and will have tea the next time they are here. He also said that the village will soon have clean drinking water facilities” said Nandu.
Not knowing how to react, Sarpanch walked into the office. He picked up the glass and gazed out of the window. He closed the window and allowed himself a sarcastic smiled.
That night as he lay down on his bed, Chandru could not help but remember the sight he had seen from the window.
Lost in the same thoughts, he did not realize when he slipped into slumber. Chandru slept well that night thinking what he did was the best thing under the circumstances to do.

Home and Away

Coming back to blogging is something that I had wanted to do for a very long time. But the lazy bum in me kept winning and my blogger self made peace with losing all the time. Coming back to blogging was also not something of a spontaneous decision and its not like I feel inspired and I need to change the entire society and will launch a crusade via blogging. It is just that for a long time, I didn't feel anything was worth writing about.
I was born in Bangalore and don't remember much about the event, though my folks keep telling me that it happened on a cold wintry evening on the 12 of December one fine year. My dad remembers it clearly because he was watching an India Vs Pakistan cricket match on TV that day. :) Anyways, I don't intend to write about my birth and things associated with it and bore most of you readers.
The thing that I took a fancy for writing this time is how is living different at home and away. All my friends who are die hard football fanatics, I am sorry. This is not about any of the Leagues played in Europe. It plainly is about how life is different in your home town and in any other city or a town.
As I said, I was born in Bangalore. I grew up in Pune and Mumbai. After completing my entire academic life, I joined a MNC in Pune. 2 months down the line, an opportunity came up in Chennai and I took it up. Lots of people gave me lots of advice about the place. I was given advice about how to live in a place which is not home. And it is funny when such advices pour in. You then get to see how much free advice we Indians can give to each other. So, armed with tons and tons of friendly, scary, sound, sympathetic and even a few outrageous advices, I landed in Chennai. A lot of people openly told that Chennai was one of the scariest places to live, especially if you are living outside your house for the first time. I cared a damn for such advices and decided to make my own experiences count. The problem is if you heed to such advices, you always tend to live on them. Your own sense of adventurism is lost. If you look down upon an opportunity to live in a city which is not your own, as a jail sentence you will never tend to enjoy it. I mean, lets face it no matter where you come from home will always remain home.
I had friends of my sister coming from a remote hamlet in Bihar and telling tales of how their hamlet was better than Pune. I had a few friends of my own telling me how cities in MP were better than Mumbai. Even now, I get to hear stories of how Jaipur has better infrastructure than Bangalore. I, for one cannot accept that a hamlet in Bihar can be any better than the 2nd most important city in one of the most important states of the country. I do however accept that it is someone’s hometown and they will tend to like more than Pune. I absolutely don’t accept that a city in MP can compete with the metro/cosmopolitan city called Mumbai. If that was the case, the city in MP would have been a metro city. I do however accept that it is home to may people and all of them will like their city more than Mumbai. I have no qualms with that. On the same note, if you tell me that Jaipur is more technological advanced and has better infrastructure then my question to you is, what is Japiur’s population? And why is it that the Rajasthani’s make up for a sizable chunk migrant population in India? If all is well in Jaipur, why set up home in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi?
I just want to say, a place which is not your hometown will never be able to live up to your expectations. I was one of the people who did not want to get adjusted to Chennai as I thought I would be betraying my own city Pune. I complained and grumbled a lot about the language, climate, the dirty smell, the unkempt beaches and virtually everything about the city. But then no one bothered about it. I had to let go of myself to realize that this city is home to millions. If I complain about it, I don’t make myself any different from what I hated the most .. people complaining about Pune. That is when I came about and made my peace with it. It did take time and was a long and slow process. But if you don’t do that the only person left whining is you and no one else bothers. So as a humble request to all people who are not living in your own hometowns, stop complaining. Don’t live in an another city and compare it everyday to how it is worse than your hometown.
Don’t complain that you don’t get good Paneer in Chennai. You get the best Idli’s and Dosa’s in the whole wide world at Murugan Idli Shop in Besant Nagar, Chennai. Not to mention a divine connection that you can make via food at Hotel Anna Lakshmi on Anna Salai.
Don’t bother giving details about the high quality infrastructure that the capital has as compared to Bangalore … Delhi has to have it. Bangalore was built despite being out of sync with the centre in the last fifteen years. If you can, then be grateful that you have peace, tranquility and safety for your women here of which the capital can hardly provide.
Don’t boast about how your city in MP is a religious place and people from 3 different religions can pray at a one specific spot. Dadar (West) has had it for decades now and it still stands as a mark of solidarity in the city.
The bottom line is if you keep whining, the only person listening to you is you yourself or some other random guy. ;) Think about it.