Twin roads

Because of rains the Mumbai roads became really bad, and we invented a longer but comparatively better root through a village. This is a parallel road to the main busy road.
It is so shockingly surprising to see the difference in the 2 roads. One main road, occupied completely with big hi-tech industries and the road parallel is well 20 years behind!
Once you enter this parallel road world changes, you travel back in time and see a different reality. I find it like a place that isn’t bothered about the world around.

Greenery is still not angry with them, they are blessed with a nice little pond, and there is a temple on its bank to guard this little place. What made me feel the difference in this place is its pace… People still walk on their own feet or on bicycles, not hurrying up to reach some invisible destination. Kids still walk down to the school which might be a bit far by our standards. People still have time for idle chitchat. You still see old men in dhoti idling around, sitting and chatting in a shade. When I pass by this road, its almost 10.30 AM and people are bathed and clean no matter whether they have work or not J
Something in this place always reminded me of the place in Africa where Azzaro stays in Ben Okri’s Famished Road.
I found it Poor, Happy, Sad… but unlike Azzaro’s place, mostly content…

Few days back my uncle visited us. In exchange he mentioned that he’s stayed in new Bombay and that all these areas were under his supervision. He very casually mentioned that all this industrial area, including my office, used to be fields. Government bought the land from farmers and the industries were made.
Jobs too were offered to the natives but what can an uneducated farmer work as? A watchman? And how many watchmen are required in a handful of industries?

Now that I know how this village was formed, what they had and now vanished; I feel a kind of deep, lost-ness on the roads.
The now old faces must have been farmers, din’t know what to do with the money they got in return of the lands. Now all the money is gone, no farms to reap from, no education to get a job. The village is filled with tea stalls and petty shops of tobacco, grocery, meat, barber, tailor and at the most a photo studio.
The old men are the generation of farmers, now their knowledge and experience of no use without land. The younger generation is totally lost, without roots and a roof.

I see the village people working for tar roads, driving autos and often wonder how they must feel when they pass by a place that used to be their own piece of land.

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