My little good Jamshedpur
Jamshedpur is my city of origin. I left it 35 years ago. But as is the case with native place one could never cut off from it. Like a truant school boy I always try to find some excuse to run away from my business and visit Jamshedpur, my city of love. Last August I visited this little city at least after four or five years. It was still that little good Jamshedpur. The hills of Dalma range were still there with all its mysterious colours and flavor. During the month of August river Subarnarekha still flows with the grace of a young queen who belittles everything with the dignity of her resplendent beauty. And people of Jamshedpur were still very raucous at their very shell but if you have little patience to crack that hard shell you will find ,at your surprise ,a sweet and soft kernel inside the shell.
But the city had undergone a sea change during last three or four years. I found Jamshedpur now became a city of V.R.S. (voluntary retirement from service). Every third person I met was a V.R.S. Once a thriving city of Trade-Apprentice and Graduate Engineering Trainee now appeared to be an ardent follower of Russell’s ‘In praise of idleness’. Really, only fool dies in work-house! But change is the law of nature, one can’t help it.
Thirty five years ago during the period of our golden unemployment day we used a prosperous tea stall at Sidhgora Bazaar as our regular ‘thek’. But like its regular visitors it had also taken V.R.S. The shutter was pulled down, all benches and tables were gone, a few pieces of bricks and broken wooden plunks served as sitting arrangements. During day time there was a romantic darkness inside the shop that played hide and seek with defused light that infiltrated through broken slates of the roof, and in the evening an oil lamp of 1950 edition was lit and placed in the middle and its flickering light cast a ghostly shadow of inmates against bamboo wall. And my few fortunate friends who still managed to keep their job intact with TISCO or TELCO and those who had taken V.R.S. sit here regularly at their ‘aadda’. My friends had been highly spirited so they kept on consuming spirit to keep their spirits as high as it were thirty years ego. But cannabis was really our first choice. Our ‘thek’, the little shady haunt, was always laden with heavy thick smoke of cannabis. Whenever I visited our ‘aadda’ they set continuous fest of cannabis smoking to my honour. It seems like to be the pyres of Raja Harischandra Ghat of Banaras- the fire of cannabis never dies down.
But my present visit to Jamshedpur had taken a beating when I was introduced to some Barmanda. A short, slender and skinny Barmanda was a new entrant to our ‘aadda’ his cheeks were shrunken, eyes drawn back to eye-socket and his head was bald. But some unruly hair went down as long as his neck. His physic did not give the exact idea of his age; he might be of anything between 40 to 60. He had a striking resemblance with that of Professor Calculus of Tintin. And he was a happy recipient of V.R.S. He was a prolific smoker of cannabis and it is the rare quality that found him a permanent seat in our ‘thek
I found him perfect gentleman, an intimate smile always hovered round his face. He received me with sincere intimacy, and I immediately felt the warmth of close friendship in his association. He offered me a freshly prepared ‘kolkey’ (cannabis smoking pipe) and ordered Pepsi generously for all who were there, and thus flowed the plenty of V.R.S. money. During the smoking session one of my old friends pushed me
to a corner and told me in a hushed voce, ’Do you know how he could manage a job in TISCO?’
I stared at him expectantly.
My friend continued, ‘He was a champion body builder. He won national gold medal in his category. He got the job against sports quota.’
And for the next few seconds I found myself at my wit’s end.
