Tuesday, September 16, 2008

New Dreams, Harsh Reality

A lot has changed and yet its all the same. The roads are bursting in the seams with traffic, constructions big and small, planned and unplanned have come up all around. The bustle is noticeably more and people appear busier. Kalimpong has not been immune to the recent spurt of change and yet it is perhaps one town in the Darjeeling Hills that has managed to cling on to a large part of its past spirit. Darjeeling did not have much of open spaces, Kurseong was primarily tea garden land, but the brilliant yellow paddy fields have been characteristically Kalimpong. Slowly, many of these open terraces are making way to habitation, but the town still retains enough that draws me back to her on and off.

As I look at Kalimpong town bask in this pleasant December sun, a chilly breeze hits me atop Tirpai Hill. The drive up from town was uneventful. Despite a few Maruti vans forcing down their way through a one-way, the narrow road afforded enough leeway for us to pass without any detours. I have driven up to Tirpai many times from town by the same road, but its only in recent years that I have realised how narrow it is. Maybe the road has shrunk or possibly the constructions on the sides have cramped it to this narrow trail.

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As a child, Tirpai was birds, walnuts and the cold breeze. The breeze still blows strong and cold, the walnut tree stands taller but the birds have grown silent. The hill no longer plays host to their chirps - the concrete has stifled their very existence. The house is visibly older. The moss has overtaken most of the north wall, some of the wooden frames have rotted at the base and the paint on the roof is peeling off.

The people here are older, my kanchi boju*, B mama**, R chema***. Even B, the little kid as I remember with the loud bawl and the constant snort trail below his nostrils, is grown up to a little man and shakes my hand instead of the conventional dhog^. He even attempts to initiate a conversation and updates me about town and also his own academic pursuits. After his final exams in April, he wants to study further in Calcutta and wonders how good a choice it is.

Among all the Kalimpong people that make the collage of images in my mind, Ramu daju’s^*^ is one that has perhaps remained unchanged. The hair is white now, which was probably black once, but he has practically remained the same through the years despite the few fine creases that line his face beneath the stubble. As a kid, we had to look up when addressing him, but the difference in height swiftly got bridged and the opposite holds true now. The talk remains the same though: he is aware of most general happenings around town and yet his interpretation and narration can be called only his, much to the glee of others. The omnipresent display of his even, well-brushed white teeth make up for most of his inconsistencies when it comes to the constant banter that he finds himself forced to indulge in out of habit.

For us, Ramu daju was the guy who milked the cow, lit the fire, cleaned the chicken coops and climbed trees around the house to cut branches that blocked the sun. We never really played with him, though we were a passive but constant shadow as he went through his chores. He made some small talk about the cow, birds, bees and hay. There were frequent references and comparisons to ‘his gaon^^’ back in Nepal, where things were similar and yet everything was better - the cow healthier, probably due to the greener pastures, the sun brighter and yet not as hot as in Kalimpong, the bees made more honey and birds were more colourful and plentiful. Most of all, it was peaceful.

The daylight hours for Ramu daju went on household chores, but the evenings were his alone - spent watching Doordarshan on the Sonodyne TV in the living room. There were no set rules or protocols regarding the seating, but Ramu daju shared the spot right in front of the TV on the carpeted floor with us, with the older ones reclining or sitting on the couches further behind. Starting with Krishi Darshan he would take in every second of the programming till it was lights out and the household retired for the night. The evening news was perhaps the highlight and any mention of prime minister Rajiv Gandhi delightful to him. The Nepali King was for him, a parallel to Rajiv Gandhi and he usually embarked on a monologue singing his praises and the development work underway back home under him. His loyalty to the Nepali royalty was perhaps best illustrated by a small framed picture of the Royal Family that hung on the wall above his bed.

The cow is gone now and the coops are filled with poultry chicken in place of local ones. Ramu daju’s shedule seems lighter with the load of the cow’s upkeep gone and LPG now being used in the kitchen instead of wood. Even the big Sonodyne TV has made way for a much sleeker Sony Wega, and in place of Doordarshan Ramu daju can enjoy Nepali fare courtesy Nepal TV, Channel Nepal and Kantipur.

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Kalimpong town was abuzz with activity that day. A new political force had emerged that was finally posing some serious challenge to the incumbent group. The recent weeks had seem some political strikes and disruptions, and also a few instances of violence and carnage. The townspeople fearful of a resurgence in socio-political unrest, and fed up with the frequent political strikes had embarked on a peace rally around town. There perceptibly was a big assemblage, the roads were jammed and traffic had come to a halt to let the rally through. I could hear the din from the sunny vantage point of my boju’s courtyard. Ramu daju joined me with an update on the recent developments in town.

“The few years of peace we had after the Gorkhaland agitation is about to be broken again. We had a terrible time during the movement - you remember it, don’t you? You were just a kid then. We men-folk barely slept at night. The CRPF personnel would swoop down and arrest people indiscriminately. So many people from this vicinity got arrested and beaten up. I was lucky...,” reminisced Ramu daju. “You must have scampered away scared and hid somewhere. I don’t think they would have arrested you or anything. Moreover, you are a Nepali and you could have just told them that...,” I teased him. “As if it was that easy,” he angrily retorted, “you were too small to realise the way things were then. And you’ve always been nestled safe and cosy in Gangtok.”

Expecting an extended tirade, I moved away, but Ramu daju caught up with me and enquired, “so, how are things in Kathmandu? I have been hearing about the events there. Are things really different? Everyone’s been talking about the New Nepal, must be very exciting to be there now. I’ve heard Prachanda^^^ will be the President. He may well be like Gyanu^*, autocratic and authoritarian...” “Its still the same. There has just been a change in the political system. Recently they even removed the King,” I explained.

“There wasn’t a king as such after the demise of King Birendra. He was the real king,” Ramu daju reasoned with his simple sensibilities. “He was a good king,” he continued. He would have carried on perhaps, but for B, who interjected loudly, “you know what? Ramu daju is all set to return to his homeland. He wants to spend his old age in the New Nepal.”

Ramu daju uttered a few words of denial defensively, but it was clear that he did harbour some dream of returning back to Nepal. The recent events in Nepal, and the thought of a New Nepal, whichever way he took it, had perhaps added vigour to the dormant longing for his land.

A couple of weeks later, I heard that Ramu daju had indeed left for home.

---

A few months later, while in Kalimpong, I was in Tirpai again. I was surprised to see Ramu daju bring in tea. On enquiring, my boju summarized his misadventure in Nepal in a sympathetic tone.

His ordeal had begun right from the day he stepped on a bus for Kathmandu at Kakkarvitta. The journey that normally took about 14 hours had taken him over three days due to the frequent stoppages and detours en route owing to bandas**^ called by the miscellaneous agitating Madhesi factions.

Ramu daju had been an ordinary, average Nepali while at home, a farmer’s son and living off the land. The tarain for him was, going by various accounts, a hot, faraway tract of land, inhospitable and teeming with ‘tarain-basis’ who somehow eked a living off it.

As a teenager, Ramu daju had travelled to Kathmandu in search of a better future. The city built on a valley was dirty and hot, but he was surrounded by familiar looking hills and mountains. After about a year of doing odd jobs in the Valley, he had followed a missionary who was returning home to Kalimpong. It was then that he had had his first taste of the tarain. Attuned to the mountains and hills, the flat plains with miles and miles of semi-tropical foliage was alien to him. If Kathmandu was hot, the heat in the plains was scorching.

During the long, arduous drive he caught glimpses of the tarain-basis working in the fields. They looked no different from his own folk, only darker, and possibly as hard working. They had seemed docile and rapt in earning a sustenance to even bother glancing at the passing thoroughfare.

Returning home, and passing through the tarain again, Ramu Daju felt a perceptible change in the demeanour of the people. The other changes were more visible, a barrage over the Koshi river, many more vehicles plying on the road and a lot more roadside townships. The highway appeared less desolate lined by habitation, small shops and dingy eateries, mostly makeshift and no more than sheds.

The people he encountered now were very different from the ones he had passed during his earlier passage. They seemed much more aggressive, angry and not easily persuaded. Living in Kalimpong, all plainsmen were ‘bhaiyas’ to Ramu Daju. It wasn’t a derogatory reference, but just a label that had stuck on through the years. During a stop at a small hamlet, he had wanted to purchase a piece of fried fish. “Bhaiya, could you give me a piece of fish,” he asked naively. The exchange would have passed off without any incident in the past, but little did he know that now in the New Nepal, the Madheshi was no pahaday’s bhaiya. The vendor burst at him, but feigning ignorance, an apologetic Ramu Daju retreated to the safety of the bus.

As Ramu Daju found out from his fellow passengers, it was inclusive times, and the Madhesh, as the tarain was also called, had finally found a voice and were pressing for the rights they had been denied for so long. The pahadeys could no longer dish out the ‘tarain-basi’ rhetoric without the fear of reprisal. The plains were up in arms, and blockades and stoppages appeared to be the most effective way of expressing the general ire at the administration. An unwary Ramu Daju had to bear the full brunt of the Madheshi agitation, and his journey was riddled with stops and detours in the sticky heat of the plains.

He had finally reached Kathmandu, tired and weak, only to be bewildered by the changes that had come over the Capital in the few decades that he had been away, mostly for the worse. The crowd, the congestion, the traffic and the pace of things in general had literally driven him insane. The city appeared to have seen a massive exodus of the people from the countryside during his absence, and it seemed filled to the brim.

A complete stranger and almost lost, Ramu daju had somehow managed to escape from the metropolis on a bus bound for a town near his village. The trip this time ran smooth and he was pleasantly surprised to know that even his village was connected now by a motorable road, and he was lucky to hitch a ride on an old dilapidated jeep. Weary, he finally set foot in his village, much relieved and overwhelmed to be back. Development as he saw had not swept by here as swift as it had in the Capital. The road had ushered in some changes, but prosperity had been limited to a few, and their taller, bigger brick and cement houses bore witness to that. In general, the village still reeked of poverty.

The Movement was said to have been to change all that - wrest power from the hands of a few and empower the general, but Ramu Daju wondered if it had achieved that end. Despite the lush green crops decorating the terraced slopes, the landscape was still bleak and familiar. He could faintly recollect the general lay of the land, and was soon on his way home where, as a youngster, he had left his elder brother and his family behind on a quest for something better.

Guided by a few helpful people Ramu daju had managed to find his house, but to his dismay, found it locked and in utter disrepair. Some casual enquiry revealed that his brother had died quite a few years back. He was succeeded by a son, but he too was absent. He was supposedly displaced during the People’s War and was now believed to be living in some camp somewhere with his mother, wife and two children. His lands had been confiscated, and the assurance of such land being returned had been only in principle and not yet implemented. A few expected him to return, but no one could say when?

Ram daju was finally home, but found himself homeless.

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Later, feigning ignorance, I asked a glum looking Ramu daju, “so, did you not go home? Now that the New Nepal has dawned when are you making the trip?” My intention was not sarcasm, but my question had perhaps brushed his ego and he replied sourly, with a hint of ire, “don’t act naive. I did go, but the New Nepal was just too new for my liking...”

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* Grandma’s youngest sister
** Maternal uncle
*** Maternal aunt
^*^ Elder brother
^ A way of greeting where a younger person bows his/her head for the older person to lay his/her hand on and bless.
^^ Village
^^^ Maoist leader
^* Short for Gyanendra, the deposed king
**^ Strike, shutdown

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