A sleepy happy world.
i spent a fortnight last month at my ancestral home, far away at a village in Rajasthan.
It also happens to be my birthplace. Everything about this sleepy village is dear to me. The hanuman temple by the giant banyan tree, the primary government school which i attended as a child, the concrete road that runs right through the heart of the village end-to-end, the village well where men, women, children from my childhood would gather more to chat and recreate than to fetch water. There used to be a long narrow reservoir around a couple of water-taps by the well. The water in it used to be greenish-brown with slime and mucus that got mixed into it from the mouths of the buffaloes that drank water in it. As kids, we used to dread even looking into the reservoir. It marked the existence of a dark, mysterious and ghastly world full of creatures the thought of whom was enough to make shivers run down our spines. We could not dare to even stand by it all alone! As events turned out, one fine day i slipped and fell into this dark, deep, mysterious and scarry world we always believed existed. Scared to death I was that moment, my heart skipped several beats as i kept struggling to get to my feet. However, the monsters that i met under the gloomy waters were, to my utter surprise only fat, slimy,ugly and croaking frogs!! With my frock covered in repelling slime n mucus, i finally jolted out of the water and ran home crying!
All that has changed now. The taps still stand in their places, but the reservoir storing drinking water for animals has be relocated. Another thing that I really miss about Dujod is its serenity. There is never any kind of "noise" there. Once in a while the temple loudspeaker is heard abuzz with religious 'bhajans'. Sometimes a DJ is heard playing rajasthani songs in a 'barat' and thats all to it. Calm, serene and peaceful, life here has its own pace and at the end of the day every villager is happy and satisfied with their respective lives. If one happens to pass by at noon, he might probably walk the entire length of the village and not meet a single human! That's because most have finished lunch and are off for a siesta while others are in a nearby town for work.
In one corner of this hamlet is situated my sweet, not-so-little home! As i reminisce my days spent there, I realise the how true the phrase "home is where the heart is" rings, and more so when ones home is situated in a village as this!
i spent a fortnight last month at my ancestral home, far away at a village in Rajasthan.
It also happens to be my birthplace. Everything about this sleepy village is dear to me. The hanuman temple by the giant banyan tree, the primary government school which i attended as a child, the concrete road that runs right through the heart of the village end-to-end, the village well where men, women, children from my childhood would gather more to chat and recreate than to fetch water. There used to be a long narrow reservoir around a couple of water-taps by the well. The water in it used to be greenish-brown with slime and mucus that got mixed into it from the mouths of the buffaloes that drank water in it. As kids, we used to dread even looking into the reservoir. It marked the existence of a dark, mysterious and ghastly world full of creatures the thought of whom was enough to make shivers run down our spines. We could not dare to even stand by it all alone! As events turned out, one fine day i slipped and fell into this dark, deep, mysterious and scarry world we always believed existed. Scared to death I was that moment, my heart skipped several beats as i kept struggling to get to my feet. However, the monsters that i met under the gloomy waters were, to my utter surprise only fat, slimy,ugly and croaking frogs!! With my frock covered in repelling slime n mucus, i finally jolted out of the water and ran home crying!
All that has changed now. The taps still stand in their places, but the reservoir storing drinking water for animals has be relocated. Another thing that I really miss about Dujod is its serenity. There is never any kind of "noise" there. Once in a while the temple loudspeaker is heard abuzz with religious 'bhajans'. Sometimes a DJ is heard playing rajasthani songs in a 'barat' and thats all to it. Calm, serene and peaceful, life here has its own pace and at the end of the day every villager is happy and satisfied with their respective lives. If one happens to pass by at noon, he might probably walk the entire length of the village and not meet a single human! That's because most have finished lunch and are off for a siesta while others are in a nearby town for work.
In one corner of this hamlet is situated my sweet, not-so-little home! As i reminisce my days spent there, I realise the how true the phrase "home is where the heart is" rings, and more so when ones home is situated in a village as this!
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