Peepul/People

I reach home after a usual day at school. Even before I step out of the car I can sense something unusual. There is a flurry of activity. There are some men, strong muscular ones , in vests and dirty pants, milling around. Servants from our house (first floor of the big bungalow), Chacha's place (ground floor) and Tauji's place (another building in the same compound) are out too, doing no particular work though. When I demand an explanation, the maid tells me that these men have been hired to cut down the big peepul tree in our compound. Holy crap! It had never occurred to my tiny brain that such a big tree could ever be cut down. When you are four ft. eleven inches a tree that huge seems unconquerable, if thats a word. But the powers that be had decided that and that it would be. But, oh ho, that was my favourite hiding place for hide and seek. The trunk was thick enough to hide me completely. I run to Dad to complain. He lays my anxieties to rest. Says, the trunk wont be cut. Everything else will be. He explains that the tree is very old and is becoming hollow. Its branches arch over our terrace garden and the whole compound. They make break and fall. And that would be very dangerous to the building, which happened to be very old too (almost 90 years old. They say it was built when my great grand dad got married.), and to the people. The branches would have to be cut. Perfect, I thought. My hiding place was secure and as for the rest of the tree, it really hadn't been of any use in my life of 9 years.
I become part of the excitement around the activity. People shouting instructions to each other, Dad telling the men that no branches must fall over the building, the men beginning to axe away. Our terrace garden would be the perfect vantage point to view the operations but Bhaiya, who treats me like a kid just because my age is still a single digit number, doesn't let me go there. Says kids may get hurt. I sit at the window and watch. There are so many windows which i can see it through; the dining room ones, the sitting room ones and the glass door of the terrace garden. I watch all day, marveling at the skill of the men.

I reach home after another usual day at school. The compound is so sunny today. Oh! The tree is gone. Hmph! The compound used to be cool and shaded earlier. Anyways, I'm hungry. I go sit at the dining table. My usual seat is opposite the window. Usually, at least five times a meal I'm scolded for staring out of the window absent-mindedly and forgetting the food on my plate. I can't really help it. I get amused by the tiny pieces of the sky peeping from in between the foliage and making different shapes everyday. But the view outside is so weird today. I can see the sky, which is a dull uninteresting blue, actually closer to 'white with a hint of blue'. And some ugly building across the road. Who paints their building dark pink? I wouldn't even eat ice-cream of that colour. And do i live opposite that building? Gross! There is a dusty little ground where boys are learning karate. Can they see inside my house too? I feel so exposed.
The dining room isn't the only one naked. The sitting room and the terrace garden have been stripped too. There is a sense of the vacant in every room along the length of the house. We've lost the peepul, or people? I'm confused. Every room feels less like a room now and more like a balcony overlooking the street. My home was my home. Now, the pink building, the karate boys and the street below are part of our wallpaper. To move out of a home is disturbing but to stay there and have the home move out requires a word not yet assimilated into my lexicon. Maybe by the time I'm in class five like Bhaiya I will know the word but maybe when I'm older, I, like Bhaiya, won't miss the tree enough to tell you this story.

A-Cola

Seventh Grade:

‘Hey, I’m Anushree*(Name changed to protect privacy).’ ‘Hi, I’m somebody-I-just-met from some-known-town. Where are you from?’ ‘I’m from Akola.’ ‘Akola? A cola?’ Oh no. not again. ‘Ya. Like Coca-cola. I’m from this town which has a huge Coca-cola factory, thus the name.’

Believe it or not, that is the story I told a couple of people a couple of times when those couple of people from a couple of known cities asked about my unknown unsung little hometown.

Eleventh Grade:

‘Where are you from?’ ‘I’m from a town called Akola.’ ‘Akola? Where’s that?’ ‘It’s in Maharashtra.’ ‘Oh. West coast.’ Don’t people learn Geography in school? Why do most non-Maharashtrians think Maharashtra is all on the coast? Reality check: It extends all the way to central India and my A-Cola is pretty much right in the centre of the country. Back to the conversation. ‘No. It’s actually almost central India.’ ‘M.P. you mean?’ Give me a break. ‘No. Maharashtra. Do you know Nagpur? It’s about 200 kms from that.’ It’s funny, when people from Assam or Bihar or Punjab say they are from Assam and Bihar and Punjab, no one asks them ‘where in Assam, etc. etc’. Why do people want to know where in Maharashtra?

So now you know why ‘Where are you from?’ isn’t really a question I’m excited about.

College:

(Wiser from experience)

‘Where are you from?’ ‘Hi. I’m from Bombay.’ Phew! No further questions.

Now, now, don’t you go thinking that I’m ashamed of my sweet home Akola. Not one bit. Neither do I lack affection for it. I love it. Just that explaining to every Tom-Dick and Harry, or every Rohit-Rahul and Raju, where it is gets a tiny bit too tedious. The most hilarious was when one old man said ‘Wow. Is that even in India?’ and one dumbass mused ‘Sounds like an exotic far-away place’. You’re way off the mark, both of you. On the other hand, when someone nods when I say I’m from Akola and acts like he knows, I look so shocked and incredulous that I, to sane eyes, appear insane.

Anyways, let’s start from the beginning. I’ll give you a quick background on it. It lies on 20° 42' N 77° 02' E on the Deccan plateau. Akola is in the cotton belt and is in fact even known as ‘the cotton city’. It has a population of above 16 lakhs (yes, that’s no exaggeration). And you would like to know, it does have electricity and movie theatres and schools and hospitals. (Actually Akola also has Mercedes’ and Accords.)

Over to more interesting things like the soul of the city, the culture, the language, the essence. :Wink: It’s no Calcutta or Bombay to boast of a history or culture but, be kind, it does have its flavour. (Apart from the oldest fast food joint by the name Fresh Flavour that has looked the same ever since I was a foetus.)

Akola has its own language. Some influence from bambaiya but otherwise original. There are some words only Akolaites (like Mars:Martians::Akola:Akolaites) will use. They won’t say ‘Tu kahaan jaayega?’. They prefer ‘Tu kahaan jaayenga?’

There are some amazing good points as well. Lets enumerate.

1. If you can drive in Akola’s traffic, it’s given that you can drive anywhere in the world, even in Right hand drive countries. Akola has no traffic rules, nor any traffic sense for that matter. Every auto, cycle, scooter and car is apni marzi ka maalik. Makes for great training under the toughest of conditions and has undoubtedly produced some of the toughest drivers in the country.
2. You never envy anybody. No one is wealthier, smarter or prettier or at least not way wealthier, smarter or prettier than you. You never wish you had more money. You can afford everything here. It’s a peaceful saint-like existence.
3. You can have a bedroom the size of a skating rink and a garden the size of a football field.
4. You can come home year after year, decade after decade, and not feel like you’ve been away. Nothing changes. Except maybe they add a street light here and a hoarding there.
5. Filthy rich rolling-in-money businessmen marry girls from Akola. Our girls have been placed at the Birla’s, the J.K. tyres people and the Sterlite group. So we also have three private jets that land at the near-private airport, or must I say airstrip, once every year.
6. There is an amazing variety of restaurants that crop up every now and then. (And close down with the same frequency). Nothing other than the aforementioned Fresh Flavour, with its age old décor and songs like ‘sau saal pehle mujhe tumse pyaar tha’, runs consistently.

(OK this post is getting too long now.)

All this Akola bashing has been done for I was tagged because someone wanted to hear me do exactly that. But I must tell you more, lest you take my bashing too seriously. Akola isn’t too bad. I did 9 years of my schooling there and also junior college, so it can’t be that bad.

Some of my fondest memories are based in Akola. My old house which was 90 years old, with colored-glass windows like you see in Devdas and a fountain in the courtyard. My alma-mater. The pani-puri wala near school. The lane next to the petrol pump that still reminds me of my first crush ( whose house is on that road). The back lanes and the dhobi ghat to which I cycled with my cousins. But oh well, you don’t wanna know of those things.

We have a cultural club where big artists like sonu nigam, jagjit singh, shiv mani etc. come to perform. We have Radio Mirchi and a Reebok store and lately we’ve added the Levis’ feather to our cap. And once in a while Akola even finds mention on the front page of leading dailies. Farmer suicides in Vidarbha, you know. Our claim to our two minutes of fame.

For the uninitiated:

The first historical reference to Akola is found in the 17th century, when in 1658 Aurangzeb ascended the throne of Delhi. Akola was granted to Asad Khan, the prime minister of the Mughals. At that time Akola was a village known as Akola Balapur. Berar, of which Akola was a part, was in the Nizam of Hyderabad's dominion. In 1853, the Nizam ceded Berar to the British East India Company, but in 1857 part of it was restored to the Nizam. In 1903 the Nizam leased Berar to the British Government. It was then transferred to the Central Provinces. In 1956 with the reorganisation of states, Akola was transferred from Madhya Pradesh to the Bombay Province, and in 1960 with the formation of Maharashtra, it became one of the districts of the state. (The picture on the right: Big Ben:London::Khandelwal Tower:Akola)