Experiences of a life time
It was the year 2004, I was on my first 'out-of-mumbai' marketing trip to Delhi. Among other customers I had to go visit the Jindal Steel Plant in Hissar, Haryana.
Sometimes when I look back, I wonder what an Electronics Engineer, like me, was doing, selling water filter to a steel company....but let me not get there. This blog is about my experiences during my travel across India.
I was to travel with my senior colleague, Munish, who was based out of Delhi. So, when he told me that we would be leaving at 8:30pm for a 4 -5 hour journey to Hissar, I wondered why he planned for us to reach an unknown place at 1am, but instead just asked him the following question:
Me: "Kaunse bus se jaana hain?"
Munish: "Jee...Haryana Roadways ki mil jayegi. Nahi toh UP roadways ki toh han hi"
Me: (thinking) This was going to be fun.
So we ended up at the ISBT bus stand in South Delhi and boarded the Haryana Roadways bus to Hissar. The bus was more than usually crowded for a Sunday night travel and Munish explained to me that this was because the earlier bus to a town before Hissar had been cancelled and all had boarded this bus. As we moved moved out of Delhi and crossed the border into Haryana, I slowly was able to wade through the crowd and found myself a window seat. I somehow managed to place my heavy bag in my lap while Munish, who by now had found a place close to the driver, held on my laptop.
A couple of hours into our journey, as we were traveling through some small town, the bus driver, who was a sardar, flicked a switch and turned on the radio. The songs were in Punjabi, but not the Punjabi that we commonly hear and occasionally understand. This language was totally different. I assumed this was the local language of Haryana - 'haryanvi'. It was pitch dark outside and I wasn't able to sleep as was sitting with a bag on my lap. I looked around and saw that an old man was seated next to me. He was dressed in dhoti, a sleeveless jacket and wore a cloth around his head to protect his ears from the cold breeze blowing in that night. The breeze was a welcome change for me, coming from the sweltering heat in Mumbai. After a while, I thought of engaging in some sort of conversation with the old man.
Me: "Chacha, yeh gaana jo baj raha hain.....haryanvi mein hain?"
The response that I got left me spellbound.
OldMan: "Son, this is not haryanvi. The bus driver is from Punjab. It looks like his cassette. This Punjabi is widely spoken in the interiors of Punjab. The driver is probably from somewhere in Jalandhar."
I was speechless to hear that old man speak in perfect English that would have given my grammar a beating!!! Seeing the surprise on my face the old man continued
OldMan: "Where are you heading son?"
Me: "To Hissar ....sir"
OldMan: "Ohh...Are you studying there?"
Me: "No sir, I am on an official visit"
OldMan: "Acha....we have a lot of students studying in Hissar. Thats why I asked."
I could not hold on to my curiosity for too long.
Me: "Sir, don't mind me asking you this. But just how come you know such perfect English?"
OldMan: "hahaha....Son, I am the Principal of a Primary English Medium school in Hissar. I had gone to visit my sister in Faridabad. "
Me: "Ohh....that's good."
OldMan: "You know son.....they say that Kerala has the highest literacy rate in the country. But Haryana is not far behind. Our literacy rate must be close to 95%"
Me: "I can see that now sir..." (smiling)
We continued to talk till our journey ended, but this was quite a memorable one because it had completely changed my perspective about rural India.
Another fond memory of Haryana that I still carry is that omelette-bread I had on our way back to Delhi at 11pm at night. The bread was actually embedded into the omlette and two double egg omlettes and bread had cost me only 20 bucks!! I have tried replicating that embedded technology when I was in Australia, but failed on every occasion!!
My job took me to other parts of the country where I had similar unique experiences -
1. Travelling in the genral class of a train to Baruch in Gujrat, cause the train has no reservation.
2. Travelling from Baruch town to our destination in the middle of nowhere, in the cabin of a truck.
3. Walking across the Howrah bridge in Kolkatta, while the mighty Ganga gushes under your feet.
4. Taking a stroll along the long beautiful uninhabited beach in Ratnagiri.
5. Staying in a hotel surrounded by some 40 theatres in Bangalore during my first visit here.
6. Eating Chinese Chopsuey out of a banana leaf in Chennai
7. Stopping a drunk husband from beating his wife in some remote village of Maharashtra while we were passing through.
8. And the most memorable one, a trip to a place which all of us would rarely dream off - Dhaka in Bangladesh.
These and many more incidents are still fresh in my mind. Somehow, I feel I was destined to be there and get a first-hand look of the life that others live. I used to ask myself the question 'Why me?'............I still havn't figured out an answer for that. Hopefully, someday I will and when that day comes I will look back and remember that old man and say - "Thank You...sir"
Sometimes when I look back, I wonder what an Electronics Engineer, like me, was doing, selling water filter to a steel company....but let me not get there. This blog is about my experiences during my travel across India.
I was to travel with my senior colleague, Munish, who was based out of Delhi. So, when he told me that we would be leaving at 8:30pm for a 4 -5 hour journey to Hissar, I wondered why he planned for us to reach an unknown place at 1am, but instead just asked him the following question:
Me: "Kaunse bus se jaana hain?"
Munish: "Jee...Haryana Roadways ki mil jayegi. Nahi toh UP roadways ki toh han hi"
Me: (thinking) This was going to be fun.
So we ended up at the ISBT bus stand in South Delhi and boarded the Haryana Roadways bus to Hissar. The bus was more than usually crowded for a Sunday night travel and Munish explained to me that this was because the earlier bus to a town before Hissar had been cancelled and all had boarded this bus. As we moved moved out of Delhi and crossed the border into Haryana, I slowly was able to wade through the crowd and found myself a window seat. I somehow managed to place my heavy bag in my lap while Munish, who by now had found a place close to the driver, held on my laptop.
A couple of hours into our journey, as we were traveling through some small town, the bus driver, who was a sardar, flicked a switch and turned on the radio. The songs were in Punjabi, but not the Punjabi that we commonly hear and occasionally understand. This language was totally different. I assumed this was the local language of Haryana - 'haryanvi'. It was pitch dark outside and I wasn't able to sleep as was sitting with a bag on my lap. I looked around and saw that an old man was seated next to me. He was dressed in dhoti, a sleeveless jacket and wore a cloth around his head to protect his ears from the cold breeze blowing in that night. The breeze was a welcome change for me, coming from the sweltering heat in Mumbai. After a while, I thought of engaging in some sort of conversation with the old man.
Me: "Chacha, yeh gaana jo baj raha hain.....haryanvi mein hain?"
The response that I got left me spellbound.
OldMan: "Son, this is not haryanvi. The bus driver is from Punjab. It looks like his cassette. This Punjabi is widely spoken in the interiors of Punjab. The driver is probably from somewhere in Jalandhar."
I was speechless to hear that old man speak in perfect English that would have given my grammar a beating!!! Seeing the surprise on my face the old man continued
OldMan: "Where are you heading son?"
Me: "To Hissar ....sir"
OldMan: "Ohh...Are you studying there?"
Me: "No sir, I am on an official visit"
OldMan: "Acha....we have a lot of students studying in Hissar. Thats why I asked."
I could not hold on to my curiosity for too long.
Me: "Sir, don't mind me asking you this. But just how come you know such perfect English?"
OldMan: "hahaha....Son, I am the Principal of a Primary English Medium school in Hissar. I had gone to visit my sister in Faridabad. "
Me: "Ohh....that's good."
OldMan: "You know son.....they say that Kerala has the highest literacy rate in the country. But Haryana is not far behind. Our literacy rate must be close to 95%"
Me: "I can see that now sir..." (smiling)
We continued to talk till our journey ended, but this was quite a memorable one because it had completely changed my perspective about rural India.
Another fond memory of Haryana that I still carry is that omelette-bread I had on our way back to Delhi at 11pm at night. The bread was actually embedded into the omlette and two double egg omlettes and bread had cost me only 20 bucks!! I have tried replicating that embedded technology when I was in Australia, but failed on every occasion!!
My job took me to other parts of the country where I had similar unique experiences -
1. Travelling in the genral class of a train to Baruch in Gujrat, cause the train has no reservation.
2. Travelling from Baruch town to our destination in the middle of nowhere, in the cabin of a truck.
3. Walking across the Howrah bridge in Kolkatta, while the mighty Ganga gushes under your feet.
4. Taking a stroll along the long beautiful uninhabited beach in Ratnagiri.
5. Staying in a hotel surrounded by some 40 theatres in Bangalore during my first visit here.
6. Eating Chinese Chopsuey out of a banana leaf in Chennai
7. Stopping a drunk husband from beating his wife in some remote village of Maharashtra while we were passing through.
8. And the most memorable one, a trip to a place which all of us would rarely dream off - Dhaka in Bangladesh.
These and many more incidents are still fresh in my mind. Somehow, I feel I was destined to be there and get a first-hand look of the life that others live. I used to ask myself the question 'Why me?'............I still havn't figured out an answer for that. Hopefully, someday I will and when that day comes I will look back and remember that old man and say - "Thank You...sir"
Comments
It changed my perception of Haryana as well!
U must consider elaborating those other experiences sometime.