The "Ancestral" Village

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“The time just flies, doesn’t it? The only constant thing in this world is change, and look how we have changed. I still remember our summer holiday times, when all we wanted to do was to play hide and seek from morning to evening, while taking small resting breaks under that big banyan tree every now and then. No need to fret for anything, not even for food. Play the whole day and get back home before the night fall. It almost feels a feeble dream to me, as before we could realize, all of us headed out towards our own very ways in the pursuit of attainment. Weren’t those some days Mark?” Catechized my friend Adam. “Oh yes Adam, I truly cherish those golden days of our lives.” I affirmatively responded.

“Adam, how many years it has been since I returned to this place again? I have been away for so long that now I have lost count of it.” I inquisitively asked. “Man, it feels like eternity to me, but yeah it must have been two decades, at least, if not more.” Adam replies.

I had returned to my ancestral village “Kashi” after nearly two decades. My village has traditionally been a peaceful and fun loving place, situated on the banks of river Sabari which flows along the root of a mountain, in the far flung jungles of Jharkhand, and close to a 100 miles away from the nearest city, which happens to be Raipur. This village of mine was and even today, continues to be stuck in the past. This must have been the primary reason which would have triggered the need for my families migration to Delhi, leaving all our ancestral property behind to rot and decay.

My father was the first son of this village who had got an opportunity to have formal education, all thanks to my grandfather, who never saw face of a school himself, but had the open minded outlook towards education. Back in the days, attaining a formal education was deemed pointless, as being the landlords of the area that we were, we already had enough wealth and lands to support a lavish lifestyle, ”lavish” being subjective of course, was a breeze. But my father fought with the village community and sent my father abroad to get himself literate.

When my father returned to his village, after finishing his education of a barrister, he only had one objective on his mind and that was to bring his village out of the darkness of illiteracy and free the residents of the village from the clutches of superstition and mythical doctrine, they were taught to believe since childhood. This was the time when India was still under the ruling of theBritish and a barristers degree could have fetched big emolument. If my father wanted, he could have accepted the countless number of offers that went pouring in, on his way. But, for the greater good of his people, he constructed a school in the village itself and settled there as a teacher.

He would go to each and every house, asking and explaining residents to send their children to school. He would spend several hours every single day, only trying to spread awareness amongst the villagers for the importance of literacy. I was only 5 back then when Adam, my friend & neighbour, myself would spend our whole day playing in the fields. Despite all the unyielding & relentless efforts from my father, people of this village were too backwards & adamant to any changes and the results weren’t too promising. The poor tribal population, of the village, wanted their kids to start earning bread for the family, right from the tenuous age of 5. They were reluctant to take a look at anything beyond the meagre short term gains. And the blindfolds of superstition, draped around their eyes, weren’t letting them accept any changes to their ancestral beliefs.

While my father was fighting for the betterment of the society, I on the other hand, was having a gala time. Playing the whole day, jumping from one tree to another and generally wreaking havoc in the village was my routine for most of the days. As they say, “the area right underneath a lamp happens to be the darkest” and something similar was happening with me and my father. Where my father was trying, everything he could, to literate the entire village, and on the contrary, I was drifting away in an opposite direction.

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End of Chapter- 1

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