Posted on: Mar 31, '08
My home of childhood
I had a weird dream a few nights back. I was back at my childhood home at Agrico, in
Jamshedpur. After quite some time, I remembered my childhood town.
For a little background, Jamshedpur is one beautiful city in Eastern India. It had the Asia’s first and biggest for many years, steel plant – Tata Steel. A carefully planned and maintained city grew around it. As workers and intellectuals poured in from every corner of the country, it was a very cosmopolitan city. The complex where we stayed at the end of our tenure there, had sixteen apartments in each block. They were two bedrooms, one bathroom units. In the block we stayed, people spoke more than 8 languages at home. Outside it was predominantly Hindi. English was yet to become the language of my thoughts.
The city has two rivers and one huge partly man made lake. There are hills nearby which has much wildlife. Wild elephants are the most famous inhabitants in the mountain forests. The elephants some time come down from the mountain and ruin crops in the nearby farmers’ lands. Farmers used to beat up tin drums and burst crackers to scare them. Sometimes an elephant will separate from its heard due to injury or other causes like losing a fight with the alpha male and grow mad. These mad lone elephants cause death and much destruction of property and crops. They would stampede on people and break mud huts. Often villagers would stay in complete dark at night, so as not to attract attention. Generally these elephants are hunted down and killed. Many adventure stories have been written around these hunts.
One of the rivers is called “swarnarekha”, the word means a line drawn in gold. The myth is that the river sand contains gold. People apparently used to spend hours to sieve sand for little particles of gold. Also the bank of river has quite a few quicksand areas. The river was incredibly romantic to us when we were kids. We once went to a picnic on the confluence of the two rivers of our town. It was beautiful with tall slender eucalyptus kind of trees around. There is a kind of wild flower found abundantly in that area. They come in red and yellow. The yellow ones were planted by the roads and the roads would often be covered in a vibrant yellow. A yellow carpet welcoming you warmly to walk down a road sloping slowly towards a river and distant hills. That was the road in front of our house.
The red wild flowers are to be found in the forest. The whole forest would turn a bright flaming red in the spring, as if the whole forest is on fire. Curiously enough is the soil too is bright red there. The sane explanation is that the soil there is rich in iron and many different ores. The myth is that there was a very brave and ambitious tribal prince. He wanted to rule the heaven and the earth. So he started a very difficult tapasya1. He stood on his head and without eating or drinking anything, meditated for months and years. He wanted to please the Gods2 with this, so he could get a boon and become the king of heavens. Lord Indra who is the king among Gods became very agitated when our guy went on for years and feared that some powerful and benevolent God might grant him his wish. So he got other Gods together and plotted and schemed to save his own throne. He then came down to the most powerful king on earth (Lord Rama who is famous enough to have one whole epic Ramayana written on his life – he is supposed to be the model of virtue) and asked him to put a stop to this. This king has always been a nice guy but he sided with the Gods to save his own skin, I suppose. He went down to the prince and broke his tapasya. The prince was very angry and asked why he dared to do this. The King replied that only a “khsatriya” (the caste of kings and soldiers) can be a king and not a lowly tribal. The prince was bitterly angry and understood the politics. He started to fight and was beheaded by the all powerful king3. His blood saturated the whole land red.
In fact the land there is full of many tribes who have been usually kept down by the powerful castes. Recently a part of three neighboring states in the area broke out as another independent state. This state’s major population is of tribes, some of whom still live in jungles abundant in this area. This area is richest in minerals in India and has many very beautiful places which can be really good tourist attractions. Not much development has happened post-splitting, but hopefully it will happen. The tribes here are peaceful in nature and have much wonderful heritage. Even if you know nothing about them and encounter one, just their broad white innocent smile will win you over in a moment.
The steel factory is almost in the middle of the town. Because of the good planning and a huge numbers of trees planted, the city is not so polluted. They would pour molten steel near the furnaces inside the factory. The sky would glow red for a few seconds. It is a vision to see. Often they would do it for a few consecutive times in the late evening. Watching it can make one feel that that part of the town had caught fire. The industries and commerce in that place were throbbing at the time. How I traveled from the model city of the India which wanted to use heavy industries as her road to prosperity to the model city of the twenty first century India’s claim to fame on the global arena, could be another story.
I left the place for good after I completed my schooling there. I did visit for a few more years till I graduated from college and then dad too shifted out. I have never been there since. It is now a town I only dream of and it remains the same that I saw while growing up. The house I saw in my dream last night was one very near to ours, back facing the same play ground in the middle. The people in that house are a story in themselves, to be told another day. Tragedy struck them violently. The house came up in my dream showing my recently ex-boyfriend living there.
Tapasya is an act that is generally self-inflicted and makes one endure tremendous difficulties to promote ones spiritual growth. Sages are known to stand under the scorching sun, or in freezing conditions, for hours on end. More close to home, one hears of people undertaking difficult fasts. Some include, not having even a drop of water, for days on end. It is believed that the discipline that is the result of ‘tapasya’ gives rise, to spiritual growth.
I am using the word God in plural here. As we also do think God is one and alone. But in mythologies, our world is divided in three parts - the heaven which is above us, the earth which is middle part and the subterranean earth where hell is. The Gods live in heaven who have drunk the elixir of life and live forever young. They are built like humans generally and have human emotions but are far more powerful and wise. Then we humans live on earth. The monsters live below ground in their kingdom. They too are very strong and quite powerful but not so wise except for a few. They are the beings who are too greedy, too hungry, too big, a little weak on the head. They are forever fighting with the Gods. When the Gods found the elixir of life, they made these creatures work very hard to get it but cheated them out of it.
I think the other version is that the prince asked for forgiveness from the king. So the king granted him a boon that he will forever be remembered. The prince had nothing to live for and wanted to die in the hands of the great king and so the king beheaded him at his request. I find the version I told above more believable. And definitely the killing was to make an example out of it. There definitely are other versions and interpretations.
Tags: childhood, city of birth, dream, nostalgia, mythology
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