Africa is not the only dark continent.Conditions in the Jharkhand region of Bihar of the sixties and seventies were similar. The jungles of Jharkhand were wild and dense, the natives subject to its vagaries and untamed ways, having learnt to accept adversity as their lot. It was through this hard, unyielding landscape that the Coalfield Express took me, a seven year old, to the Coal city of Dhanbad, one rainy morning in August,1967.
My father had joined the faculty of the Indian School Of Mines and my mother was a home- maker. We were from solid TamBram stock, total aliens in the culturally and linguistically different milieu that Jharkhand was. But this was the place where I spent the next sixteen years of my life, growing up and became the person I am.
Dhanbad, like other places in Jharkhand was a bit like Pearl Buck’s China where man battled fiercely against heavy odds to eke out a living. Here man fought man; the poor, exploited miner pitted against the might and muscle of the colliery owner. Very often, he also fell a victim to nature’s fury- of famines and droughts, floods and cyclones etc. Here men begged, borrowed and stole. The rickshaw puller nimbly ran on the potholed roads, pulling with unbelievable strength, fat, unfeeling men and women for a mere rupee or two! But the one rupee that the fat man doled out was his bread and butter! In this land of Gautama Buddha, the Bihari was truly enlightened - he had seen all and suffered all. In a truly fatalistic manner, he learnt to be happy with nothing, bracing against life’s difficult situations with a smile that seemed to say that this too shall pass. The only law that existed was that imposed by the Mafia in this otherwise lawless state.
In this land of the Black Diamond and utter backwardness, the Sisters of the Apostolic Carmel carried the torch of English education to the far-flung corners of Bihar. One such bastion of learning was Mount Carmel School, a convent for girls to which flocked the progeny of the denizens of Dhanbad. Doctors and lawyers, professors,scientists,mining engineers, businessmen, in short all those who had headed for Bihar in search of a livelihood and were anxious about their children’s education sent their wards to this illustrious centre of learning. I had studied upto Std. III in Gujarat where my father had been previously employed and was now seeking admission to the next class.
I was nervous as I had to take an Admission test. I had good reason to be diffident- having come from Gujarat where I had learnt to read Panchatantra stories in English and the Hindi alphabets. As I recall now, I didn’t do too well in the Admission Test but the Sister Superior was a kindly soul and admitted me to Std. IV. on condition that my progress would be observed. I did not feel out of place for long. Though my classmates were clever and confident, they were good-natured enough to make a new girl feel at home. I was especially weak in Maths. but two girls, Nanda and Bula came forward to help me.
Nanda was a tall, thin girl with a serious face and without an ounce of flesh to spare. Bula, with thick spectacles and thicker pigtails was not as serious as she looked and loved to pull her classmates’ legs, especially the quieter ones. Then there was Shaila, who always had a Kishore Kumar number on her lips ( those were his heydays ) and soft-spoken Ameetha, always carefully groomed, in keeping with the latest trend from the Beauty Parlour, making the rest of us feel dowdy and frumpy. And who can forget Sumita, who loved nothing better than to send shivers down our spine with her endless ghost stories. Geetha and Sumita were extroverts, participating with enthusiasm in debates and elocution competitions. Janaki was the role model worth emulation, accomplished in a wide range of activities,from painting to dancing, needle work to music, apart from her school subjects. We were small in number-there were only twenty- five of us but big in heart. Right from sharing Bula’s special sweetmeat which she always brought for us,from her home town to the emotional grief that we felt on the passing of a classmate’s parent, there were many shared occasions. The girls of my class in Mount Carmel learnt the first lesson of a disciplined life-to focus on a goal and work hard to achieve it. In the cloistered convent environs, we learnt to balance fun with hard work, to dream big and pursue our dreams We dared to have ambition,to laugh and cry and to share alike in sorrow and happiness. I realize it now-when the day came for us to part, after the final year in school, most of us genuinely felt the pangs of parting. Such was the closeness we had developed in about a decade. The time had come to say a final goodbye to happy, carefree, prank-filled days in the playground and the classroom and to companions who had made up a slice of life. Looking back, I now think that accentuating the sadness was the underlying realization that we would perhaps never see each other again.
Thirty- five years ago, we were at the crossroads. Neeru and Pinky, who came from traditional Punjabi Jat families married right away. They were the first ones, in our batch to enter the marriage arena. Some of us joined professional courses while the rest trudged the routine B.A. or B.Sc.route. Consequently, some of us were together in college at the Pre-University level, before going our different ways. We swore to remain in touch but in our heart of hearts, we knew that this was a difficult promise to keep. So there, we were spread across India or even different parts of the globe, engaged in the business of raising families or pursuing professional careers. Most of us had no roots whatsoever in Dhanbad, our fathers had retired and left the place. Now and then, a fleeting thought would cross our minds about the rest of our school mates but we all remained totally isolated till one fine day, a few months ago, Nanda got into the act and managed to trace the whereabouts of a few girls who had steered back to Dhanbad.The Net did the rest and some ten girls, rather middle-aged matrons now suddenly discovered their childhood mates, Nothing short of a miracle! The sudden and unexpected joy of discovering old chums was the best gift that New Year 2009 brought. Once again, we were discovering each other like excited school girls. We had become mothers, engineers, doctors but at heart, we still remained students of Mount Carmel School. The discovery was at once, sweet and exciting.
We have all entered middle age, but middle -age blues do not bother us. Our lives have reached a plateau, with the struggle of everyday living and tensions mostly behind us. We have no more goals to chase, no more corporate ladders to climb, no more families to raise, no more exams to worry over. Now is the time to look back, and reflect over those endlessly happy days which were the core of our undying closeness and friendship. We now share our personal as also our families’ common interests and activities, achievements and accomplishments. There is a renewed interest in knowing how the other has fared in life without being judgemental or invasive of personal space. Nanda shares a poem that her son wrote when he was eight years old. Janaki, who works for an Art magazine, relates her experiences in compering cultural events. She rubs shoulders with celebrities, quite often. We are up to date on special occasions in each others’ lives like Birthdays and Wedding Anniversaries of ourselves and family. Bula, who is now a doctor in Minnesota in the USA calls us, by turn to find out how we and our families are faring. Sweet memories are our Facebook- we don't need to login because we live in the other's memory.I do not know when and whether we all will ever meet in person. But an e-mail from Nanda, Bula or Janaki charges my batteries. I feel enriched and my heart dances like Wordsworth’s daffodils.
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