@ the CrossRoads…
Amritsar, the city where the sun shines twice, once of its own glory and the second time as reflected by the tomb of the famous Golden Temple. Whilst the sun may be a far cry for man, people from far & wide come to visit and pay their tributes at the Harmant Sahib, as it is known locally here.
My day here starts with a heavy breakfast of kulchas at the Friends Dhaba below my hotel. Premji, the head waiter whose general attire is grey trousers & a vest, has never attended a class in CRM or JIT, but manages to get my breakfast ready for me even before I reach the place. Having satisfied my stomach for almost the entire day, my next destination is the bus adda. Am the n’th passenger on the autos that ply to the stand; generally the rule is: auto ek, passengers no limit.
The bus stand is quite a place, which is always in a flux of activity; with buses plying to close to 50 destinations from one stand. Enquiring my way through to the bus for my destination, I generally am welcomed into the bus which has an MTV like culture written all over it. The large posters of Guru Nanak & Golden Temple laced with large plastic flowers of all colours & a background music score that is folk Punjabi blended with some new-age Jazzy B & Daler Mehdi peps up the environment for a good 1-2 hr long journey into the rural parts.
Drinking in the scenes of the green & golden with a layer of mist above; spread across the land of Veer-Zaara, my euphoria is broken once in a while by the traffic jams that are generally referred to as ‘Road ki nasbandi’ by the conductor. Often, the protectors of the Khalsa Panth walk in with their spears… kinda scary in today’s age…
On a few occasions, travel during lunchtime has been awarded with a stop at an en-route gurudwara for a langar break. Believe me, the best 5 stars in the world can’t beat the experience of an entire bus getting emptied under a large tree, fresh wheat rotis served with spicy black dal to the entire crowd in a matter of minutes followed by some fresh hand-pump water pulled up; all this without any expectation in return. God bless these selfless souls… On other occasions, lunch generally comprises a plate of Samosas with very sweet imli chutney served out of Castrol cans on a highway dhaba whilst sitting on a charpai.
My project currently involves getting into the direct distribution network, towns with a population of 5000+ - this entails traveling to these pinds (villages) to judge market potential. Most of these are small diversions at a crossroad till where the bus plies. The journey further & back is on cycle rickshaw across fields on kaccha roads.
Waiting for a bus on the ride back, my thoughts reflect on the life at the crossroads… Women folk on their haunches placed on small mud mounds await their respective bus, the village oldies going through the local newspapers for some news that could fuel a discussion, the retailers in stores looking forward to customers, the rickshaw-wallahs awaiting a savari… the silence being broken by the sudden thrust of an occasional urban motor-vehicle or bus passing away in great speed… the fruit-dweller having to pick each apple and wipe the dust that has been thrown off the road. Life at a stand still here, just seems to wait for something… things hardly seem to move, even the mynah prefers to walk across the road rather than fly over it…
Reading ‘Illusions’ by Richard Bach the other day, he says ‘Every individual chooses the world he lives in’ – can’t help but agree with him; for a billion Indians there exist a billion worlds… mental worlds that we all form through our thoughts. But the fact is that the dimensions of the canvas and the palette of colours that we use to paint our individual mental worlds is to a large extent governed by the real world we live in.
Life @ the crossroads is about a world which seems perennially waiting for something to occur… considering the real world that people live in here, its not too difficult to imagine the small size of their mental canvas… or the limited palette of colours at their disposal… but then again, the crossroads lead to numerous places, depending on the path one chooses to take…
Guess my bus has arrived and I’ll soon be out of here… as I look back, the dust has settled down & the apples are being polished again… Bye!