Purana

-

I alighted from the train and went outside to find an Ola Taxi. It was extremely crowded, and I felt like I was in a different city than I had on previous visits. I am not a frequent traveller to Delhi but have visited 6-7 times only. From the taxi, I was observing and trying to ascertain the difference between today and my earlier visits. I then realised it was a purana Delhi. I saw so many cycle rickshaws for passengers and luggage, goods carriers, auto rickshaws, etc. unorganised at road sides; labourers and owners dealing with raw materials, traffic jams, etc. Then I was thinking about purana Ahmedabad. Purana Ahmedabad has almost the same situation.







Purana Delhi, Purana Ahmedabad or the old habitat of any big city, which anyone can differentiate easily as they all look more or less the same. Dealing with raw materials, labour work, and small businesses, etc. are all carried out in Purana city only. I am sure big businesses in big cities must be dependent on this labour work and small businesses only, and they made it naya and purana in which purana has the fate of suffering from hardship and having to do arduous, laborious work.

It was a harsh, hot summer season. Even in the morning, we started feeling the heat, dispirited and drained. In this condition, these people are doing drudgery each and every day. I will call it drudgery only because it is menial and laborious work that they are doing. I was watching it and thinking how unlucky they are that in this harsh summer they have to do this kind of work.

But at the same time, I am very sure that they must be thinking how lucky they are that at least they have got some work to do from which they can earn some money and can eat in the evening...





Comments

  1. UnknownJune 21, 2016 at 2:36 AM

    The title itself draws the images. I differ with the authors view as hardship existed all around and accepted the fact that old strong guys built these cities workable & moving. With there efforts in the dark corridors of the cities the main roads are glittering. Once again a soothing reading. Keep writing and keep publishing

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who taught her?

-
It is a purely Indian sub-urban market where I can find anything, such as fruits, vegetables, provision stores, pani-puri lorries, a popular chaat shop, different banks, clothing shops, and, more interestingly, a famous shop selling Rasgulla and Gulab jamun (both of which are popular in Odisha). I like the place very much. I used to go there whenever I visited Salepur with my sister-in-laws. Salepur is a district town in Odisha. Odisha is culturally very rich and the people of Odisha firmly believe in God. Here, people are not businessmen by nature, like Gujaratis. Usually, men prefer to do jobs, especially government jobs, while women do domestic work only. There is no importance to business. Even businessmen face difficulty in finding a woman for marriage. Married women rarely wear punjabi suits; they wear sarees mostly (in sub-urban and rural areas). Women do the majority of the cooking and household work. Once, I visited one shop with my sister-in-law to buy some clothes in the sa
Read more

Participation in real meaning…

-
Participation in real meaning… Participation is a word nowadays popular not only in development sector but in corporate sector as well. Everyone is using it very easily but can’t assimilate or internalize it. Everyone means trainer, NGO workers, politicians, government high authorities etc. all are using this word ‘Participation’. What I learnt from our watershed classes of participation (From Ms. Shilpa Vasavada, Ms. Kirtida Vora), you can’t generalize the people by saying villagers (gramloko) or all the Gujaratis or all the Indians (deshvasiyo). It becomes very raw statement if we use it like this. Is it ambiguous? May be you can feel that way. If we address the people as villagers or community and generalize them then the only people who are already active and aware will participate in each activity if you want or not and if you inform them or not. For example in Gramsabha – We announced gramsabha by every means like by writing on walls, by beating drum, by announcing i
Read more

Quaint Students, Quaint Teachers

-
Image
The location was the Lal Bagh Botanical Garden in Bangalore. The rain in such a huge and beautiful garden was making the environs very romantic.  Trees , shrubs, flowering plants, greenery, and in between I could see lovebirds in the lovely drizzling weather. Walking around in such a nice place with fascinating surroundings was a really awesome and phenomenal experience. I visited a bed of small zinnia flowers, a tree fossil, one big white silk cotton tree, pruned trees in different shapes, and then I came to a big water storage body.  I was staring far through the water storage body, absorbed in such a lovely environment, and my engrossment was disrupted by so many noises. At first, I got irritated by the noises as they were disturbing me on my comfortable lone journey. But as I saw beautiful and charming faces, I forgot everything. It was a small group of school children with their three teachers. In between, I'd like to mention that the department of horticulture of the state ha
Read more