It was nothing unusual for that day. It was not a festival, no one was getting married and I didn’t come first in the class. But our house had a festive look. The scent of newly painted walls was present all over the place. It was neat and clean everywhere. The bed wore new bed sheet, window curtains were clean and the room was dust free. The dampness of the soil made it cool all around. The whole family waited anxiously in the open varanda of our ancestral home. We were waiting for my grandfather who was coming home after a long time from his work place, kolkata.
This was a routine affair for most of the families in our village. This was the day when we would anxiously wait for the head of the family to return to our ancestral home after every six months or so. It was a common norm in those days that the earning member would be living in the city and the other members of the family would remain in village itself.
Situation changed with generation and when my father moved to the city, he brought us along with him. We would visit village during vacations and festivals.
The life of village was totally contrasting to the city life. The silence of the village, the loving neighborhood, the nights spent on daadi’s lap, days spent in fields and summer in mango orchards……………list goes on. There was no electricity, no TV, no pizzas and no cinema hall. But those were the best days of my life. Daadi’s stories were more enjoyable than the TV serials, Ramlal’s samosas were tastier than pizzas, the starry nights on rooftops were cooler than ACs, and the hand pump water was warmer than the geysers. That pure and serene beauty of a typical Indian village mixed with the innocence of childhood makes those days quite irresistible today.
I have been living in cities for some decades now,. With the time, the life of cities has changed a lot. It has become quite costly. The population has increased quite considerably. Indian cities have become the most populated cities in the world. In addition to that increased living standards of people here have led the land prices to skyrocket. The two room flats that were affordable for middle class families are out of range for a well paid citizen today .The loan facilities provide a helping hand but the high interest rates make sure that we remain in their clutches for quite some time.
If this shooting of real estate prices continues, I foresee a future where we would be forced to move our family back to our ancestral homes in villages and live single in cities to save money and sustain family. I can imagine my next generation waiting for me as anxiously as, I used to do for my grandfather.
I pause and think for a while:
Are we moving away from our past or getting closer to it? Is History repeating itself?
I must say this is a spherical world: Whatever that seems to be moving away, is actually coming back to the origin.
