A World Within by Minakshi Chaudhry Read Free Book Online Page B

again. You have been born in good times and have seen good life. Life at the bottom of the society is very different. People who beg in the streets, they too have a life. You have not seen that. That time almost everyone in the villages was poor.’
    ‘What has this got to do with Bhakhra Dam?’ I ask confused.
    ‘We were uprooted and got land somewhere else. It is very difficult to resettle and build a new life after being displaced like this. The land allotted to us was barren. It was so difficult for poor people,’ he says wistfully.
    ‘But you were rich,’ I persist.
    ‘We were moneylenders. We were better than them but many times people did not have anything to repay the loans, so we filed cases against them. It was a profession, we lent money on interest and if the person failed to repay we filed cases. That was all.’
    I am intrigued, ‘Did you torture people who did not pay, as we read in stories and watch in films?’
    He looks at me in shock, ‘No, not like that. It was not like what you see in films, the bad moneylenders. Fifty years back there was lot of poverty. We helped people.’
    ‘Oh, could you explain, Dadoo?’ But his attention is diverted.
    ‘I played bansuri [flute] on the banks of streams near our house in Chaunta. We used to take bath in the stream, I learnt swimming there. Soap was only provided to men; even we weren’t allowed to use it everyday. Women used rakh [ash] to clean themselves up.’
    ‘We witnessed our homes, villages and centuries old town and its pristine charm vanishing into the depths of Gobind Sagar Lake: Old town had temples going back to seventh and eighth centuries. Temples of Rangnath-ji and Murli Manohar were so grand and beautiful.’
    I have heard it all before. This part of his life is intact in his memory and he remembers it minutely.
    ‘Raja’s palace and the Rang Mahal were majestic with its sheesh mahal [hall of mirrors] and murals and artistic splendour. You know Bilaspur was a planned town? At that time it had different areas earmarked for the bazaars, public residences, palaces, offices, gardens and other institutions. There were so many peepal, mango and jamun trees. There were huge gardens with beautiful flowers. Satluj flowed near the groves of fruit trees and vast paddy fields on either sides of the river.’

12
    31 May 2010
    Today Dadoo again remembered his ancestral home.
    ‘Chaunta was the most beautiful place in the world till the dam came into being. The land was so fertile that even gold was cheaper in comparison. But you know your grandfather sent me to Bhanoopli to study at the age of four. I had to stay with my mama-ji,’ he said lost in his thoughts.
    ‘It was good, Dadoo,’ I say trying to pep him up.
    ‘What good? I was so small, only a baby when I was sent away from my parents. Since the age of four I did not get their love and affection. That time there were no schools in my village. ’
    ‘Dadoo tell me something about your school,’ I ask interested.
    ‘My first day at school …,’ he paused and then continued, ‘I had to go alone and I was terrified, you know. I thought that someone will take me to the school on the first day just like when I had gone to the fields in my village for the first time and I had held my father’s hand. But my mama-ji simply told me, “Look, the school is quite near from here and other children are also going, you just tag along with them.”’
    ‘Oh,’ I murmur as I see the fear in his eyes, the fear of a four-year-old.
    ‘I was terrified at that time, I really did not know what to do, where I was going, what was happening, what exactly the school is going to be like and I tremblingly followed the four other kids going to the school. There were kids walking behind me too but they were all in a gang, they knew each other, I was the only lone guy travelling to school.’
    I had started feeling guilty as it dawned on me that school was a traumatic experience for him. Before I could change