I squinted at the pigeon. There it was squatting on the tilted tube light in our classroom (the reason of the tilt partly being its guano dumped at one of the corners) feeding its baby in the nest, it had created a place so niche that it had survived all the hazardous conditions out there and was now basking in the knowledgeable drone of our professors. If you were looking for just such a nest filled with some millions of pigeons (humans!), where animals minded, mostly, their own business- then you have to just look in your next door state-Gujarat………
Welcome to the Sanskari Nagari- warm, bounteous, ancient, posh, rigorous, cautious and open-hearted. We, of course call ourselves astute crocodile-spotters as we gaze at them for hours- boring our eyes at the lazy lout with so fierce concentration that finally the gargantuan gives us some live action flicks that might have got a two-minute spot on the National Geography!!!
Well, maybe it’s not some bustling hotspot where people rise from rags to riches, but for me it had been the only home I had ever known.
In 8 rupees, the shuttle rickshaws take you to Nyaymandir from Mehasana Nagar square, a haven for a person like my mom, because little ahead lies Navabazaar, a bargaining-freak’s haven. It’s a haven for me to but quite for different purposes. Here as I navigate myself through the high human density zone from Nyaymandir To Mandvi (it saves 3 rupees, so I better walk), a plethora of smell hits my nose, the smell of attar from the passing perfume shop, the tangy smells of oil drenched bhajiyas, human sweat, smell of flowers as a boy sitting on a gunny sack tries to eke out a living by selling it to the passersby who go to visit the temple down some narrow lane…….
Above the shops you can see a distant past. Wooden houses with carvings- reminding of the city that was when the Maharajas ruled and fought great battles, now they were state of utter disrepair. It looked like it could fall anytime and time and earth atmosphere had seemed to have eaten up the wooden houses- it gave a hopeless, dreary look to the structure, a black hole that sucked you right into it even though you haven’t crossed the event horizon.
After successfully wading through the human flow (a difficult feat for sure!), I turn left, and there at some distance came-the Central Library. It still had that princely look even after the modern refurbishments, a kind of old snake with new scales ready to pounce on you at your slightest misstep.
It did pounce at me. To say the least the Librarian wasn’t happy- I being one of those guys who lets the deadlines pass by and hear the whooshing sound that it makes!! After paying the fine, I am allowed to go inside- I go straight away to the section that contains my Steven King’s and Agatha Cristie’s classics. Though of course the books themselves are earmarked- being bought in ancient times, I love the smell all the same. After some hour or so selecting the books, I move out meeting the sun in the eye.
Drenched with sweat and bitten by flies, I finally get tired- exhausted but quite happy with my selection. I retrace my steps back to Nyaymandir, and in front of Pratap Talkies, somewhere in a corner are hordes of rickshaws with their drivers crying hoarse “Station, station……..” “Pratapgunj……….”
An old man motions me to come towards him- pointing towards my cheeks- marketing some desi ointment for my freckles- but I ignore him- bit hurt by his oh-so-crude marketing strategy. A fat, mustached man comes to my rescue-“Nizampura?”
I hum yes……..
So as I lay pondering, squished between two fat ladies in the share-rickshaw, this is the only world I have ever been- my birth, my adolescence, my youth- and by each passing season, each moving sands of time I bask in this homely and earthly protection- a mother who doesn’t want her son to go out in the big bad world. I don’t mind. I love being pampered!!
Alienman 